By David R. Usher and Michael J. McManus
June 19, 2010NewsWithViews.com

Marriage-absence is the greatest domestic problem America faces. Our most daunting social, economic, budgetary, criminal, and constitutional dilemmas are driven by marriage-absence and will not abate unless traditional marriage is protected and encouraged.

Establishing sensible policies to return America to a marriage-based society will prove rewarding, productive, and seminal. The major problems of most unmarried mothers and their children will be naturally resolved. A woman’s right to be supported by, cared for, and helped by her husband will be ensured. Health care coverage will become commonplace without resorting to National Health Care. Chronic budgetary deficits at state levels will disappear and the federal deficit will drop as the number of single parent families costing taxpayers $20,000 each — plummets.[1]

Most children will grow up in intact homes, disciplined and prepared to learn in school. Substance abuse, child abuse and neglect, and poverty will decrease to manageable norms. The dollar will regain strength as the currency of world exchange.

The future of the United States is in jeopardy. Therefore, we must re-create marriage in America now, while we still have time to prevent certain financial and social collapse.

The rewards of Marriage Values policy are certain. We can reconstitute our nation’s most valuable asset: healthy marriages, the social and economic cornerstone on which all successful nations have been powered.

1. Ensuring heterosexual marriage as the social norm

No-Fault Divorce laws were a mistake that encouraged marital irresponsibility, resulting in a 50% divorce rate, a 51% decline in marriages since 1970, a 16-fold hike in cohabitation, and an 800% increase in out-of-wedlock births. Marriage as an institution is no longer trusted by younger Americans. That’s why the number of cohabiting couples soared from 430,000 in 1960 to 6.8 million in 2008, and unwed births jumped from 224,000 to 1.71 million. The “Marital Responsibility” model presumes it is responsible to remain married and cooperatively work through relationship issues as they arise.

Two new methods of “Responsible Dissolution” will be established. “Mutual Consent” dissolution will permit divorce with the voluntary consent of both spouses, without hearing or litigation. Most divorcing spouses will use this method. “Necessary Dissolution” permits divorce for defined reasons, which must be proven. Evidentiary standards are changed to conform to rules of Best Evidence. The spouse who does not want a divorce in a Responsible Dissolution will receive three-fourths of marital assets. The spouse who files for Responsible Dissolution without cause can leave the marriage, but will be penalized financially for doing so. No Fault Divorce laws will be reformed to require Mutual Consent and Necessary Dissolution.

Where children are involved, move-away laws like that in Missouri will discourage arbitrary relocation, and thus maximize parental resources for children, encourage spousal cooperation, and reduce child abuse and neglect.

2. Impacting substance abuse in the family

Eighty-six percent of major domestic violence involves substance abuse,[2] and most unhappy marriages suffer from it.[3] “Family Intervention Orders” will give the responsible spouse a power tool to leverage the abusing spouse into recovery, or face a “Responsible Dissolution.”

3. Defending marriage from invaders

Marital-interference laws are needed to protect marriages from invaders by young outsiders, who misuse sex to entice a more-affluent spouse out of a marriage and seize the place of the former wife or husband. Marital interference laws will ensure marital assets cannot be touched, result in steep fines to the perpetrator, and seize any future income from tabloid stories and “tell alls.”

4. Community Marriage Policies (CMP)

There are two generations of adult children raised outside of intact marriages who have difficulty establishing and maintaining long-term marital relations. Community Marriage Policies are the seed bed for restoring traditional marriage as the social norm. More than 10,000 clergy across denominational lines have agreed to implement five proven reforms promoted by Marriage Savers[4] in 228 communities:

• Require 4-6 months of marriage preparation that includes taking a premarital inventory and meeting with trained Mentor Couples to discuss the assessment, who also teach conflict resolution skills.• Organize annual marriage enrichment events such as “10 Great Dates,” or “Fireproof” classes to revitalize existing marriages.• Restore troubled marriages by training couples whose marriages once nearly failed to mentor those in current crisis.• Reconcile separated couples with a self-guided, economical course, Marriage 911, taken by the spouse most committed to the marriage, with a friend of the same gender over 12 weeks, saving half of marriages headed for divorce.• Enable stepfamilies to be successful parents and partners by creating Stepfamily Support Groups that save four of five marriages that usually fail at a 70% rate

If a group of congregations creates a Community Marriage Policy, Marriage Savers will train Mentor Couples to implement these reforms.

Results: Individual churches that adopt these reforms can virtually eliminate divorce in their congregations. If scores of churches take this step across a city or county, the divorce and cohabitation rates will drop, and marriage rates will rise. An Independent study by the Institute for Research and Evaluation, of the first 114 Community Marriage Policies established by 2000 found that divorce rates fell 17.5% in seven years (and 8 cities cut divorce rates in half such as Austin, Kansas City, KS Modesto. Salem, OR and El Paso).[5] The cohabitation rate in CMP counties also fell by a third compared to carefully matched counties in each state. Marriage rates are now rising after years of decline. The Institute estimated that 31,000 to 50,000 marriages were saved from divorce by 2001. With nine more years in the original cities and twice as many CMPs by 2010 (228), probably 100,000 divorces have been averted. No other intervention has saved so many marriages!

5. Church denominations will be urged to take the lead in fostering Community Marriage Policies.

They are volunteer-based strategies to provide inexpensive marriage preparation, maintenance and restoration programs. Trained Mentor Couples who have long-term successful marriages, are equipped to assist other couples at all stages of the marital lifecycle. CMP’s will also help spouses considering mutual-consent dissolution, to either reconsider or to plan for the best outcomes for couples and children.

6. Require Waiting Periods for Divorce.

In cases of Mutual Consent Divorces, parents would have to live apart for a year, before the divorce takes effect. Why? MD, PA, and IL which require 6 months to a year of separation, and up to two years if contested – have a divorce rate half that of 9 “Hot Head States” with a zero waiting period: OR, FL, WY, ID, KY, MS, TN, NM, NH and OR. In fact, there are an additional 24 Hot Head States with zero waiting for a divorce, or only 30 days, such as MO and AL. Why does a waiting period reduce divorce? A one-year period allows time for Hot Heads to cool down and for reconciliation to take place. In cases of “Necessary Dissolution,” couples must live apart for 6 months to allow for reconciliation.

7. Effective Shared-Parenting Laws

Children of divorce or of non-marriage need parenting by both the mother and father, unless a parent is found unfit. Each parent will get at least one-third time with their children. Shared Parenting laws will assume a default change of custody from one parent to the other at the half-way point to the date of emancipation, unless the parents voluntarily agree to another arrangement, assuring that the children will receive approximately one-half of their upbringing from each parent.

8. “Welfare to Marriage” policy

Welfare and child support will be modified to discourage long-term non-marriage. Shared Parenting will be required unless a parent is found unfit, is incarcerated, or voluntarily waives custody. The emphasis will be on building marriage or remarriage, and maximizing parental access to children. If a single parent is cohabiting current subsidies such as Medicaid and Earned Income Tax Credit – would not be sharply reduced if the couple marries, as at present, but would be phased down over time.

9. Trickle-down social policy: monitoring and correcting impact of policy on marriage

Trickle-down social policy requires measuring and minimizing impact of social programs on marriage. Six states currently do not tally their number of divorces: MN, LA, IN, CA, HI and GA. Such data is necessary to measure change. Marriage, divorce, and cohabitation rates will be monitored. Long-term non-marriage rates will be tracked. Impact of welfare, child support, domestic violence, divorce, and other federal and state policies will be followed to discover and mitigate programs unnecessarily harming marriage.

10. Sustainable manufacturing jobs for working-class Americans

The egress of manufacturing jobs overseas weakened marriage and fostered expansion of welfare.

This was paralleled by the rise of a belief by some that everyone must have a college education to be employable. However, information and service sectors can not provide enough jobs. We must maximize competitiveness to repatriate manufacturing jobs for working-class Americans.

Personal and corporate taxes should be waived on all manufacturing jobs that pay $15 an hour or less, with no penalty for marriage. This will reduce manufacturing costs in the U.S. stimulating the return of millions of working-class jobs needed by millions of Americans.

Footnotes:

1, Robert Rector & Christine Kim, “Fiscal Distribution of Single-Parent Families in the United States, FY2004,” The Heritage Foundation, November 10, 2007, Washington D.C.2, Alcohol and Crime, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (1998), p. 43, Bank On It: Married Couples Are the Happiest, The National Marriage Project, Jeffery Dew, p. 274, Marriage Savers is an organization founded by Mike and Harriet McManus to help clergy create Community Marriage Policies, the first of which was adopted nearly 25 years ago in Modesto, Cal, which the divorcer ate has been about half of its 1986 level for the decade of the 2000s. Marriages have doubled, with the result that school drop out rates fell by 18.4% in a decade and teen births by 30%, or double the U.S> decline5, Paul James Birch, Stan E. Weed and Joseph Olsen, “Assessing the Impact of Community Marriage Policies® on County Divorce Rates,” Family Relations, 2004, 53, 495-503

Federal entitlement programs are decimating the lives of children and trampling on the rights of fathers to the care and companionship of their kids. We must dismantle the Federal-State entitlement nexus that deprives men of their civil liberties. Here is what every man in America should know.by Jake Morphonios
(conservative)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Congress would feign admit its own dubious contribution to the suffering of America’s children. Rather, these politicians promulgate the myth that they are helping children through federal and state welfare entitlement programs. It is, in fact, these very programs which are responsible for the out of control rampage against children. Here is how the scam works.

The federal government levies taxes against citizens to redistribute as welfare entitlements among needy applicants. Congress created the Social Security Act, a section of which is called Title IV. Title IV describes how tax dollars will be distributed among the States to subsidize their individual welfare programs. In order for States to tap into the federal treasure chest, containing billions of dollars, they must demonstrate that they are complying with Title IV mandates to collect child support revenues. In other words, to get money from the federal government, each State must become a child support collection and reporting agency.

Every unwed or single mother seeking welfare assistance must disclose on her application the identities of the fathers of her children and how much child support the fathers have been ordered by a family court to pay. She must also commit to continuously reporting the father’s payments so that the State can count the money as “collected” to the federal government’s Office of Child Support Enforcement. As with all bureaucracies, this process has developed into a monstrosity that chews up and spits out the very people it was designed to help.

States have huge financial incentives to increase the amount of child support it can report to the federal government as “collected”. To increase collection efforts, States engage in the immoral practice of dividing children from their fathers in family courts. Have you ever wondered why family courts award custody to mothers in 80%-90% of all custody cases, even when the father is determined to be just as suitable a parent? It is because the amount of child support ordered by the State is largely determined by how much time the child spends with each parent. This means that the State “collects” less child support if parents share equal custody. By prohibiting fathers from having equal custody and time with their children, the State’s child support coffers are increased and federal dollars are received.

Opponents try to paint loving fathers as “deadbeat dads” for daring to challenge the mother-take-all system of family law. This is nothing more than diversionary propaganda. The concern of fathers is not that they are unwilling to support their children financially. This is not an argument against paying child support. Any father that cares about his child will do everything in his power to provide for the child. The concern is, rather, that children are being separated from their fathers by family courts because the State stands to reap huge financial rewards as a result of the father’s loss of custody. The higher the order of child support, the more money the State can collect – even if the amount ordered by the court far exceeds the reasonable needs of the child or if the father is required to take second and third jobs to keep up with outrageous support orders and escape certain incarceration. The truth is that most fathers don’t care about the financial aspects of these family court verdicts nearly as much as they care about having their time with their children eliminated for nefarious government purposes.

The root of this evil is a State-level addiction to federal tax dollars being doled out as entitlement monies by a monolithic federal government. In the wake of this horror are millions of children drowning for lack of the care, guidance, and companionship of their fathers. Statistics and empirical evidence universally confirm that children forcibly separated from their fathers by family courts are considerably more likely to suffer anxiety and depression, develop drug addiction, engage in risky sexual activity, break the law, and commit suicide. This travesty must end.

Unconstitutional federal bureaucracy creates many of the societal ills it claims to be trying to solve. There are several steps incremental steps that could be taken to restore a child’s right to the companionship of both parents. For example, citizens should insist that States abide by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. No father should be automatically deprived of his fundamental right to the custody of his children without due process of law. Being a male is not a crime. Absent a finding of true danger from a parent, family courts should order shared parenting rights and equal time sharing for divorcing parents. These rights are fundamental and should not be abridged. The automatic presumption of custody-to-the-mother is unconstitutional.

The history of America is brim with examples of the federal government denying basic rights to its citizens. Women were denied the right to vote until the women’s suffrage movement secured the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Black Americans also were denied the right to vote and suffered myriad other cruel and humiliating indignities under the law until the civil rights movement brought about desegregation, put an end to Jim Crow legislation and compelled the enactment of the 15th and 24th Amendments to the Constitution. In each of these examples, society was slow to recognize that a problem even existed or that some of our laws were unjust. It took considerable time, concerted effort, self-sacrifice and perhaps even divine providence to realign concurrent societal paradigms with the principles of liberty and justice for all.

Our generation is not exempt from similar assaults on liberty. While many just causes may stake claims for redress of grievances, one group, more than any other, pleads for immediate support. The need to defend the rights of this group of American citizens, reeling from the unjust consequences of state-sponsored oppression, is before us. It is time to stand up for the rights of children and demand their equal access to both parents.

– – –

Jake Morphonios is a civil rights advocate and North Carolina State Coordinator for Fathers 4 Justice – US. The political opinions of Mr. Morphonios do not represent those of Fathers 4 Justice. Neither Mr. Morphonios nor F4J-US provide legal advice or assistance with individual cases.

Fathers seeking support or information, or other parties interested in becoming involved in the father’s rights movement may contact Mr. Morphonios at: jake.morphonios@nc.f4j.us

PLEASE THUMB THIS ARTICLE to help spread the word to others about this imporant issue.

There is a very simple trick, used all too frequently in family courts, that will almost always ensure the immediate elimination of a man’s constitutional rights. by Jake Morphonios
(conservative)
Monday, February 18, 2008

In acrimonious divorce and child custody disputes emotions are tense and tempers flare. Buoyed by litigious attorneys, each side engages in strategic maneuvers to gain the greatest legal advantage. Sometimes a parent, fearing a loss of control or custody over a child, crosses the ethically acceptable bounds of legal warfare. An unfortunate but all too frequently used tactic by mothers is to accuse the father of sexually molesting their child. The mere accusation is sufficient to strip the father of all his custody rights and launch a criminal investigation. Even when no evidence is found to substantiate the allegation, family law courts typically “err on the side of caution” and award full custody to the mother. While national statistics reveal that the majority of all child sex abuse reports are legitimate, when such claims are made by a mother in the context of custody litigation, an estimated 77% of allegations are determined to be unfounded (Tong, 2002).A false child sex abuse allegation made during child custody litigation is a destructive legal stratagem.

Throughout the world, child sexual abuse is considered the ultimate crime. Not even murder generates the kind of raw emotional reaction that results from the sexual abuse of a child. Society acknowledges the innocence of children and responds to child abusers with extreme prejudice. The power of the accusation alone is often enough for public opinion to impeach the character of the alleged child abuser and guarantee legal victory for the mother. According to Jeffery M. Leving (1997), a leading father’ rights attorney, “the use of false sexual abuse allegations to win custody suits has become almost a standard tactic among disturbed mothers and unethical divorce lawyers” (pg 148).The accused may spend years rebuilding his reputation from the monumental damage caused by the accusation.

To investigate the effect of a false child abuse accusation, a child custody survey was conducted; the group was evenly divided between males and females. A scenario was presented in which a divorcing couple was contesting custody of the children. It was stated that both parents were fit and proper. The question posed regarded what custody arrangement would be in the best interests of the child. An overwhelming 94% of respondents indicated that joint legal and physical custody, shared between parents, would be in the child’s best interest, with 78% of respondents indicating that a 50/50 time sharing agreement was appropriate. Another scenario was presented. In the second scenario the father has been accused by the mother of sexually molesting their child. The Department of Social Services and the police conducted an investigation and concluded that there is insufficient evidence to determine whether or not the father committed sexual abuse. The question of custody is again asked. As a result of the unsubstantiated accusation against the father, 79% of the same respondents stated that sole legal and physical custody should be granted to the mother. Only 15% of respondents felt that the father should be permitted a minimum of 50% visitation with the children. In the final survey question regarding the respondent’s personal opinion of child molesters, 42% stated that they should be “locked away for life” and 48% responded that they should “burn in hell”. Why do so many mothers file false sexual abuse allegations during custody cases? They work. False accusers in this type of case rarely face prosecution.

The judicial system, likewise, responds to alleged child abusers swiftly and aggressively. Unfortunately for many falsely accused fathers, truth and justice are often niceties which are frequently ignored. Leving (1997) writes, “Based on well-meaning ‘better safe than sorry’ policy, abuse investigators often accept an abuse charge as fact and consider the accused abuser guilty until proven otherwise” (pg 150).This is a significant problem. The US Constitution guarantees that accused persons are to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. In this type of case, however, constitutional safeguards are abandoned. The burden of proof falls upon the accused to prove a negative, or, to conclusively show that an alleged event never occurred. This reversal of constitutional jurisprudence sets a dangerous precedent and ensures the conviction of many innocent men. The destructive power of a false child abuse allegation has been termed “the nuclear option” by law professionals (Tong, 1997).Once this nuclear bomb is dropped, all hope of civil reconciliation is lost. The custody battle escalates into a bitter war.

The prevalence of false accusations is a matter of debate. Disagreement over the proper ratio of false abuse statistics may range anywhere from 20% to 80%.It can be extremely difficult to correctly track the ration of true to false accusations because of the problem in identifying the intent of the accuser. In some instances a mother genuinely believes abuse has occurred. In other instances the mother may not be sure and simply doesn’t know what to do other than to file an allegation of abuse. However, when one considers all factors, including the number of retracted allegations, recantations and the preponderance of cases proven to be dishonest, a fair estimate settled upon by many studies is an average of 77% (Brennan & Brennan, 1994).

False reports of sexual abuse against children are often first reported to Child Protective Services (CPS) or some other governmental social service agency. A safety assessment is conducted by a CPS or social worker (Ney, 1995). During this brief assessment standard questions are asked of the mother regarding the alleged event. At the end of the assessment, even if no proof of wrongdoing is presented, procedure requires the social worker to recommend that full custody be given to the mother as a safety precaution until a full investigation is concluded. This assessment is included in an official complaint and presented to a district court judge. The judge will typically grant an Emergency Ex-Parte Order giving the mother temporary sole custody of the children and restrain the father from having any contact with his children, even when no additional evidence beyond the mother’s word exists. A hearing date is set and the legal battle begins.

The mother gains immediate advantages over the father. First, by giving the mother full custody of the children the court is setting a precedent that will be hard for the father to overcome. Most family court judges believe in maintaining the status quo, and subsequently order the children to continue residing with the mother rather than changing the children’s residence to that of the father (Hardwick, 2004).A second advantage for the mother is that the children are unable to communicate with their father and a process of alienation begins. The more time that passes without contact, the greater the alienation. During this period of alienation, a child may be coached by the mother to support the allegation against the father.

After the Emergency Ex-Parte Order has been granted, an investigation of the allegation begins. As part of the investigation, the child is examined by a medical doctor for physical signs of sexual abuse. It is rare that evidence is discovered. The child is also seen by social workers who use items such as anatomically correct dolls to try to encourage the child to talk about what happened. Even when the child states that nothing happened, the investigation continues. After a series of interrogations, which often serve to reinforce the false story in the child’s mind, the child may eventually say something or play with the dolls in such a way as to cause the social worker to suspect abuse (Tong, 1992).As part of this ongoing investigation by both CPS and local law enforcement, the reputation of the father is constructively destroyed by the investigation. Family relationships become strained. Employers tire of granting time off work to accommodate the father’s frequent court hearings. Social relationships are damaged, often never to be repaired.

The very process of being investigated causes many men to give up and grant the mother everything she wants from him. Sadly, many fathers are so traumatized by the horror of the process that they commit suicide (Seidenberg, 1997).False abuse expert, Dean Tong (2002), says of the emotional state of the accused:

Sleep is forever elusive, night-terror becomes common-place and depression is a constant companion. Rarely is there any support to be found within the community and rarely is there any sympathy for the falsely-accused. Throughout it all, you must bear the title “abuser,” until you prove otherwise, if you can. Disorientation, denial, shock, confusion, anxiety, and disbelief are constant. Lack of concentration is a chronic problem, exceeded only by the frustration of being denied the right to see your children. (pg 25)

Immediately, the father finds himself in a maze of confusing litigation. He spends thousands of dollars to retain an attorney. Police often request the father to take lie detector tests. Even though he submits to and often passes several polygraph tests, it does him little good as the tests are not admissible in court. A single attorney is rarely sufficient to provide an appropriate defense in this type of case. Thousands of dollars must be spent to retain psychologists and other expert witnesses in the fields of sexual abuse. In an attempt to prove their innocence, many fathers submit to invasive psycho-sexual testing, such as the penile polygraph. In this particular test sensors are placed around the penis and variety of video images are displayed to the father, such as children playing in water or little girls in bathing suits. The subtlest of sexual responses while looking at images of children will condemn the father. The cost of testing, attorneys, expert witnesses and other legal fees in this type of case often exceeds $50,000.The father sometimes has to mortgage his home and sell his assets to afford a sufficient defense. Naturally, little money is leftover at the end to use in a custody case.

In most court districts throughout the United States, judges run for office as any other politician. If a judge takes, or fails to take, an action that leads to the abuse of a child by an alleged child abuser, his political career may be over. Political expediency is a strong, yet unspoken, factor in emotionally charged cases such with child sexual abuse (Seidenberg, 1997). When a father has been falsely accused of molesting his child, even when no evidence substantiates the claim, he often loses custody of his children because the court decides to “play it safe”. The father may not go to jail, but the temporary order preventing his access to his children is frequently made permanent. By no fault of his own, the father has lost his children, all because a mother chose to fight dirty in court. For the unfortunate father who loses his criminal case, he is locked away. Sentencing for child molesters is typically longer than sentencing for murder (Seidenberg, 1997).Men convicted of child molestation are constant targets of prison abuse by fellow inmates. Fathers, unjustly incarcerated, become bitter and less productive members of society.

The father is not the only victim in a false child sex abuse allegation. Children are also victimized. Not only does the child have to submit to numerous interrogations and invasive tests to determine if abuse occurred, but needless therapy is often prescribed. The child, knowing at first that nothing happened, is subjected to counseling that reinforces the story that abuse has occurred. In time, many children grow to believe and accept that their fathers molested them. The emotional trauma is life-long. This phenomenon has become so common that psychologists have given names to the syndromes that result from false abuse claims, including Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and Sexual Abuse in Divorce (SAID).The allegation is, in itself, a form of child abuse (Wexler, 1990).The loss of self-esteem, the destruction of the father-child relationship, the mental and emotional damage and premature sexualizing of the child are all very real results of a false abuse accusation. Children who grow up believing they were sexually abused often develop deviant sexual interests and proclivities. No child should be treated so heinously by parents embroiled in a legal chess game.

A false child sexual abuse allegation, while usually ensuring the legal victory for the mother, is destructive to all parties involved. Child molestation is a terrible crime and false accusations play on the natural prejudices of society to the extent that victory can almost be guaranteed for the accuser. The loss of fathers in the lives of their children has many negative consequences for society as a whole. Laws need to be passed that protect the rights of the accused as in any other type of trial. Penalties for false accusers must be created and imposed. Social workers, judges, and others involved in the investigation of this type of allegation must be taught the syndromes that affect children when a false abuse claim is made. Sexual abuse claims made in the middle of custody proceedings must be viewed with some skepticism. Judges must be made aware of the usefulness of certain scientific tests, not currently admissible in court, which may help to vindicate the accused. Finally, an emphasis on more stable families will lead to fewer divorces, and, therefore, fewer false abuse claims. Until these, and other, reforms take place, innocent children will continue to be used as pawns in a senseless game of legal strategy.

Seidenberg, Robert (1997).The Father’s Emergency Guide to Divorce-Custody Battle: A Tour through the Predatory World of Judges, Lawyers, Psychologists & Social Workers, in the Subculture of Divorce. Takoma Park, MD: JES Books.

Jake Morphonios is a civil rights advocate and North Carolina State Coordinator for Fathers 4 Justice – US. The political opinions of Mr. Morphonios do not represent those of Fathers 4 Justice. Neither Mr. Morphonios nor F4J-US provide legal advice or assistance with individual cases.

Fathers seeking support or information, or other parties interested in becoming involved in the father’s rights movement may contact Mr. Morphonios at: jake.morphonios@nc.f4j.us

Please read the article below and share it with others to spread the word about the importance of the role of fathers in the lives of their children:

Life Without a Father

By David Popenoe
Reader’s Digest (Canada) November 1997, page 117

What a man contributes to child rearing may surprise you

THE DECLINE of fatherhood is one of the most unexpected and extraordinary social trends of our time. In just three decades — 1960 to 1990 — the number of children living apart from their biological fathers [that is: natural fathers] nearly doubled. By the turn of the century almost 50 percent of North American children may be going to sleep each evening without being able to say good night to their dads.
There was a time in the past when fatherlessness was far more common than it is today, but death was to blame — not divorce, desertion or out-of-wedlock births. Most of today’s fatherless children have fathers who are perfectly capable of shouldering the responsibilities of fatherhood. Who would ever have thought that so many of them would choose to relinquish those responsibilities?
A surprising suggestion emerging from recent social-science research is that it is decidedly worse to a child to lose a father in the modern, voluntary way than through death. The children of divorced and never-married mothers are less successful by almost every measure than the children of widowed mothers.
Out-of-wedlock births may surpass divorce as a cause of fatherlessness later in the 1990s. They accounted for 32 percent of all U.S. births in 1995; by the year 2000 they may account for 40 percent of the total. And there is reason to believe that having an unmarried father is even worse for a child than having a divorced father.

MEN ARE not biologically attuned to being committed fathers. Left culturally unregulated, men’s sexual behaviour can be promiscuous, their paternity casual, their commitment to families weak. In recognition of this, cultures have used sanctions to bind men to their children, and of course the institution of marriage has been culture’s chief vehicle.
Our experience in late-20th-century society shows what happens when such a sanction breaks down. The decline of fatherhood is a major force behind many of the most disturbing problems that plague us.
In the mid-1950s, only 27 percent of American girls had sexual intercourse by age 18; in 1988, 56 percent of such girls-including a tenth of 15-year-olds-had become sexually active. Fatherlessness is a contributing factor.
Teen suicide has nearly tripled in the United States. Alcohol and drug abuse among teenagers continues at a very high rate. Scholastic Assessment Test scores declined 75 points between 1960 and l990. The absence of fathers seems to be one of the most important causes of these trends.
Few people doubt the fundamental importance of mothers, but what do fathers do? Much of what they contribute is simply the result of being a second adult in the home. Bringing up children is demanding, stressful and exhausting. Two adults can support and spell each other. They can offset each other’s deficiencies and build on each other’s strengths.
Fathers also bring an array of unique qualities. Some are familiar: the father as protector, for example, and role model. Teenage boys without fathers are notoriously prone to trouble. The pathway to adulthood for daughters is somewhat easier, but they still must learn from their fathers, in ways they cannot from their mothers, how to relate to men. They learn from their fathers about heterosexual trust, intimacy and difference. They learn to appreciate their own femininity from the one male who is most special in their lives. Most important, through loving and being loved by their fathers, they learn that they are love-worthy.
Current research gives much deeper — and more surprising — insights into the father’s role in child rearing. One significant overlooked dimension of fathering is play. From their children’s birth through adolescence, fathers tend to emphasize play more than caretaking. The father’s style of play is likely to be both physically stimulating and exciting. With older children it involves more team work, requiring competitive testing of physical and mental skills. It frequently resembles a teaching relationship: Come on, let me show you how.
Mothers play more at the child’s level. They seem willing to let the child direct play.
Kids, at least in the early years, seem to prefer to play with daddy. In one study of 2 ½-year-olds who were given a choice, more than two thirds chose to play with their father.
The way fathers play has effects on everything from the management of emotions to intelligence and academic achievement. It is particularly important in promoting self-control. According to one expert, “children who roughhouse with their fathers quickly learn that biting, kicking and other forms of physical violence are not acceptable.” They learn when to “shut it down.” At play and in other realms, fathers tend to stress competition, challenge, initiative, risk taking and independence. Mothers, as caretakers, stress emotional security and personal safety. On the playground fathers often try to get the child to swing ever higher, while mothers are cautious, worrying about an accident.
We know, too, that fathers’ involvement seems to be linked to improved verbal and problem-solving skills and higher academic achievement. Several studies found that the presence of the father is one of the determinants of girls’ proficiency in mathematics. And one pioneering study showed that along with paternal strictness, the amount of time fathers spent reading with them was a strong predictor of their daughters’ verbal ability.
For sons, the results have been equally striking. Studies uncovered a strong relationship between fathers’ involvement and the mathematical abilities of their sons. Other studies found a relationship between paternal nurturing and boys’ verbal intelligence.
We don’t often think of fathers in connection with the teaching of empathy, a character trait essential to an ordered society of law-abiding, co-operative and compassionate adults. But at the end of a 26-year study, a trio of re-

[A graph was inserted here in the original article. The graph, called
CANADIAN CHILDREN LIVING
APART FROM THEIR FATHERS,shows the following data
1961 9.0%
1995 17.3%
Source: Statistics Canada, 93 312; and Census of Canada]

searchers at Harvard University reached a “quite astonishing” conclusion: Of those they examined, the most important childhood factor in developing empathy was paternal involvement in child care.
It is not clear why fathers are so important in instilling this quality. Perhaps merely by being with their children they provide a model for compassion. Perhaps it has to do with their style of play or mode of reasoning. Whatever the cause, it is hard to think of a more important contribution that fathers can make to their children.
The benefits of active fatherhood do not all flow to the child. Child rearing encourages men to develop those habits of character — including prudence, cooperativeness, honesty, trust and self-sacrifice — that can lead to achievement as an economic provider. Having children typically impresses on men the importance of setting a good example. Who has not heard at least one man say that he gave up an irresponsible way of life when he married and had children?
On the face of it, there would seem to be at least one potentially positive side to fatherlessness: Without a man around the house, the incidence of child abuse might be expected to drop. Unfortunately, reports of child neglect and abuse have skyrocketed since the mid ’70s. One of the greatest risk factors in child abuse, investigations found, is family disruption, especially living in a female-headed, single-parent household.
Why does living in a fatherless household pose such hazards for children? Explanations include poverty and the fact that children receive less supervision and protection from men their mothers bring home. Children are also more emotionally deprived, which leaves them “vulnerable to sexual abusers, who commonly entrap them by offering affection, attention and friendship,” wrote David Finkelhor, an expert on child abuse.
Another group that has suffered in the new age of fatherlessness is, of course, women. In this new era the oft-quoted quip that a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle no longer seems quite so funny. There is no doubt that many women get along very well without men in their lives, and that having the wrong men in their lives can be disastrous. But just as it seems to play a role in assaults on children, fatherlessness appears to be a factor in generating more violence against women.
Partly this is a matter of arithmetic. As the number of unattached males in the population goes up, so does the incidence of violence towards women.

IN ORDER to reinstate fathers in the lives of their children, we must undo the cultural shift of the last few decades towards radical individualism. Marriage must be re-established as a strong social institution.
Many practical steps can be taken. Employers, for example, can provide generous parental leave and experiment with more flexible work hours. Religious leaders can reclaim moral ground from the culture of divorce and non-marriage by resisting the temptation to equate “committed relationships” with marriage. Marriage counsellors can begin with a bias in favour of marriage, stressing the needs of the family at least as much as the needs of the client. As for the entertainment industry, pressure already is being brought to curtail the glamorization of unwed motherhood, marital infidelity and sexual promiscuity.
We should consider a two-tier system of divorce law: Marriages without minor children would be relatively easy to dissolve, but marriages with children would be subject to stricter guidelines. Longer waiting periods for divorcing couples with children might be called for, combined with mandatory marriage counselling.
If we are to progress towards a more just and humane society, we must reverse the tide that is pulling fathers apart from their families. Nothing is more important for our children or for our future as a society.

How important do you think fathers are to family life? We welcome your views. Write to Readers Reply at the address on page 8 or post your comments on our web site at http://www.readersdigest.ca. Your views may be included in a future issue.

Note: I checked their website but could not find a specific e-mail address that seemed appropriate. I suppose that some of the ones shown will do, if the recipient will forward the message to the appropriate party. –WHS]

DAVID POPENOE is a professor of sociology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
===<end of article>===

In response to the article, I sent the following message to Reader’s Digest:

Dear Reader’s Digest,

Re: Life Without Father, November 1997

Thank you for publishing the outstanding article by David Popenoe. It is too bad that the article contained two paragraphs that didn’t ring quite true in the context, although they are in line with the “politically correct” view that men are to be blamed for everything bad that has befallen us over the last thirty year and before that.

In his second paragraph David Popenoe stated:

“There was a time in the past when fatherlessness was far more common than it is today, but death was to blame — not divorce, desertion or out-of-wedlock births. Most of today’s fatherless children have fathers who are perfectly capable of shouldering the responsibilities of fatherhood. Who would ever have thought that so many of them would choose to relinquish those responsibilities?”

A number of things are not right with that.

Never in modern history has fatherlessness been more common than it is now, not even as a result of the massive numbers of casualties during the First World War, and never before in the history of mankind was fatherlessness pandemic at anything approaching today’s rates in the whole world, especially not in all of western civilization.

One statistic might serve to provide some clarification in that regard. In my home-town (Duesseldorf, Germany, pop 540,000 before W.W.II and 350,000 at end of W.W.II) immediately after the end of W.W.II, “Almost 10% of the children had lost their fathers, the fathers of 4.5% of the children were missing in action and of 7.8% in prison of war camps;” [Source: In Schutt und Asche, page 100 (Volker Zimmermann, Grupello Verlag, ISBN 3-928234-28-5, (my translation) –WHS]. I’m certain that other people will be able to provide far more comprehensive statistics pertaining to historical levels of fatherlessness.

There is nothing wrong with the statement contained in the second sentence in the paragraph. It clearly illustrates the insanity of today’s society in substituting fathers with government care, by pushing fathers out of their children’s life. I’m glad that Prof. Popenoe makes an excellent case for the wrongfulness of that policy in the rest of his article. However, the last sentence in the paragraph is an outrageous insult to all fathers who are fighting a hopeless battle for the right of their children to have a father in their lives. Those fathers are being emotionally and financially devastated by our bureaucracies in the process of that battle. After all, it is not mostly fathers who walk out of their children’s lives that causes our epidemic of fatherlessness. In three out of four cases it is the mother who pushes the father out of the children’s lives and files for divorce — most often in the mistaken belief that a life without a provider and protector in the family will provide greater freedom and more income.

What Prof. Popenoe should have clarified instead in that paragraph is that never in the history of mankind have men been vilified to the extent that they are being vilified today, and that as a result of that vilification a constant stream of anti-father and anti-family legislation is being produced that increasingly makes it impossible for far too many fathers to play an active role in their children’s lives.

Let’s hope that Prof. Popenoe will also write an article on single motherhood and the problems faced by children who grow up in the care of single mothers together with their half-siblings who are often the children of two or more different men. That might compensate for the impact that his fourth paragraph has on his readers. He stated there:

“MEN ARE not biologically attuned to being committed fathers. Left culturally unregulated, men’s sexual behaviour can be promiscuous, their paternity casual, their commitment to families weak. In recognition of this, cultures have used sanctions to bind men to their children, and of course the institution of marriage has been culture’s chief vehicle.”

Why did Prof. Popenoe find it necessary to single out men for their tendency to be promiscuous? Is it not true that the need for “sanctions to bind men to their children” within the institution of marriage applies just the same to women? Else, why is it that women have children out of wedlock and by men not part of their marriage, or have children by many different men? Promiscuity it not an exclusive male domain. The effect of promiscuity on children is just as devastating if the mother is promiscuous without having her sexuality regulated by marriage. Men and women are as equally likely to be promiscuous as they are equally likely to be violent. Both men and women are members of the same species. It took the institution of marriage to bring about the civilizing of the human race. That brought order into chaos. Will the reverse not happen if our families are being destroyed? It seems to me that Prof. Popenoe made a very good case for the family. Let’s hope that we will hear more of his views, but, let’s hope also that he’ll hold back a bit on the male-bashing.

Gender Bias in Our Family Court System

Our legal pendulum swings to yet another extreme. Gender bias runs rampant in our family court system. In the 1960’s women, fought hard to get laws passed to protect women against domestic violence. It took many painful years for our legal system to recognize women as victims of domestic violence. Domestic violence, stalking, and sexual harassment laws were passed and enforced to protect “true victims.” Many women lived through domestic violence; many died. Some went to jail for homicide; some were later pardoned. We, as women, finally got society to recognize violence against women.

Shame on all those women of the 1990’s who now use these laws to their advantage in family courts to bring men to their knees; and to erase fathers from the lives of their children! False allegations by women of child abuse, domestic violence, and stalking are almost never questioned by judges for fear of being politically incorrect.

Women who feel justified in punishing men use these false charges indiscriminately. Children are forgotten and have become our newest victims with full cooperation from our Family Court system. Children need fathers too. A recent US Department of Education study, “Fathers Involved in Their Children’s Education” (free for a phone call – 1-800-424-1616, option 3) will bear out these truths.

Women have become educated in the ways of our legal system. A new study purports women are filing 70% of divorces today. The first person to file usually wins. The unfortunate person against whom false allegations are charged must prove their innocence while a plaintiff proves nothing. As a paralegal and a woman, I am no longer proud of those of female gender who abuse our legal system.

An innocent father involved in a nasty contested divorce from a woman who vows vengeance is helpless in Family Court. Important child support laws enacted are now strictly, and sometimes unfairly enforced. There are stories of fathers who lost their jobs from downsizing and/or circumstances beyond their control. When the mother of his children insists on back child support, he is thrown into jail. Child support is based on his “earning ability.” Debtor’s prison has become our most recent politically correct means to control men. Here again, our Family Courts condone whatever women allege, accuse, and dictate to control men.

Should a husband make the mistake of remarrying, further angering his ex-wife, a second wife’s income is used as “a way to show ability to pay.” The mother of their children, on the other hand, can marry another man. The “other man’s” income is never used to lower child support. Court’s rationale – “they are not his children, not his responsibility.” Since when did a mother bear no responsibility for her children? Today’s women are earning more, and are becoming a majority in our workforce. The stay at home mom of the 50’s rarely exists today. I knew of a man who ended up paying so much child support (plus child expenses) he had to move back home with his parents. Yet his ex-wife earned more than he did.

False allegations of child abuse by a vengeful ex-wife devastates not only children, but fathers. The wife files first to take advantage of all laws passed to protect true victims of abuse and violence. The wife charges everything from domestic violence to stalking to child abuse. Courts almost always believe a woman over a man today.

I know of a man who was falsely accused of child sexual abuse. By the time he was found innocent, he lost his job, his reputation, and everything he owned. Recent statistics do show women are becoming our primary child abusers, and yes, even killers of our children. Yet our Family Courts consistently believe, “the mother always makes the best parent.”

Some mothers today emotionally blackmail and intimidate their children into fabricating abuse by their father. I know a man who fought two years to get custody of his son from a proven mentally ill mother who abused their son. Each time the court insisted “the mother is the best parent.”

A large number of children are ordered to see a child psychologist when divorce is filed. Counselors and psychologists are encouraged by our system to give bad reports against a father. Fathers are automatically presumed capable of abuse before any mother.
Mothers are intentionally denying visitation to loving, child support paying fathers, who then spend money and time in court trying to get visitation enforced. I know a man who hasn’t seen his son in 14 years, but religiously pays his child support. He stopped pursuing visitation in court when the mother threatened harm to the son. Is this fair? Why is there no press on “intentional denial of visitation”?

One of the saddest true stories I know of is a little nine year old boy who was put in a mental institution by his mother until he stopped saying, “I want to see my daddy.” There are too many stories of children committing suicide. I personally know of a woman who kept her teenage son up night after night crying about her divorce, repeatedly telling him “children ruin marriages.” Her son turned to drinking, drugs, and dropped out of college.

Divorce is a reality. It is currently a billion dollar a year business. Contested divorce is guerilla warfare whether people want to acknowledge it or not. Everyone wants fuzzy warm answers to harsh reality. There are none unless we all recognize the gender bias against males perpetuated in Family Court today, and the undeniable damage it does to our children.

Years ago women had a disadvantage in our domestic courts. Now they can feel quite happy knowing most women win. They can manipulate child support into “backdoor alimony,” deprive their children of their fathers, and ruin their husband. Truth no longer exists in our legal system.

Yes, we have come a long way. Women can be proud of the laws they fought hard for 30+ years ago. I am personally grateful for these laws. Let us not blaspheme those women who died for the very laws that many women are abusing today. We must stop abusing these laws, or one day our legal pendulum will swing back and our true victims will not be believed again.

You think you are beating men?You are beating yourself; destroying your children; and making the racketeers in our legal system rich. You are creating a generation of children who think love is conditional and possessive; who learn that violence by proxy and misuse of the law will make you a winner.

I will never be associated with any “feminist” movement which advocates false allegations, destroying children, and eliminating good fathers.

Let’s remember that it is children, not women, who are the real victims of the gender bias in our family courts.

Prepared for the Fatherhood Foundation by Bill Muehlenberg, Australian Family Association – August 2002

Fatherlessness is a growing problem in Australia and the Western world. Whether caused by divorce and broken families, or by deliberate single parenting, more and more children grow up without fathers. Indeed, 85 per cent of single parent families are fatherless families. Father absence has been shown to be a major disadvantage to the well being of children. The following is a summary of the evidence for the importance of fathers and the need for two-parent families.

One expert from Harvard medical school who has studied over 40 years of research on the question of parental absence and children’s well-being said this: “What has been shown over and over again to contribute most to the emotional development of the child is a close, warm, sustained and continuous relationship with both parents.” Or as David Blankenhorn has stated in Fatherless America: “Fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this generation.”

Bryan Rodgers of the Australian National University has recently re-examined the Australian research. Says Rodgers: “Australian studies with adequate samples have shown parental divorce to be a risk factor for a wide range of social and psychological problems in adolescence and adulthood, including poor academic achievement, low self-esteem, psychological distress, delinquency and recidivism, substance use and abuse, sexual precocity, adult criminal offending, depression, and suicidal behaviour.” He concludes: “There is no scientific justification for disregarding the public health significance of marital dissolution in Australia, especially with respect to mental heath.” Here then is a sampling of the evidence:

Fatherlessness brings poverty

a.. In America, among families with dependent children, only 8.3 per cent of married couples were living below the poverty line, compared to 47.1 percent of female-headed households.

b.. In Australia, a recent study of 500 divorcees with children five to eight years after the separation found that four in five divorced mothers were dependent on social security after their marriages dissolved.

c.. Figures from Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research show that family break-up, rather than unemployment, is the main cause of the rise in poverty levels in Australia.

Fatherlessness lowers educational performance

a.. American children from intact families have a 21 per cent chance of dropping out of high school whereas children from broken families have a 46 per cent chance.

b.. American school children who became father-absent early in life generally scored significantly lower on measures of IQ and achievement tests.

c.. A study of Australian primary school children from three family types (married heterosexual couples, cohabiting heterosexual couples and homosexual couples) found that in every area of educational endeavour (language; mathematics; social studies; sport; class work, sociability and popularity; and attitudes to learning), children from married heterosexual couples performed better than the other two groups. The study concludes with these words: “Married couples seem to offer the best environment for a child ’s social and educational development”.

Fatherlessness increases crime

a.. A British study found a direct statistical link between single parenthood and virtually every major type of crime, including mugging, violence against strangers, car theft and burglary.

b.. One American study even arrived at this startling conclusion: the proportion of single-parent households in a community predicts its rates of violent crime and burglary, but the community’s poverty level does not. Neither poverty nor race seem to account very much for the crime rate, compared to the proportion of single parent families.

c.. In Australia, a recent book noted the connection between broken families and crime. In a discussion of rising crime rates in Western Australia, the book reported that “family breakdown in the form of divorce and separation is the main cause of the crime wave”.

Fatherlessness increases drug abuse

a.. A UCLA study pointed out that inadequate family structure makes children more susceptible to drug use “as a coping mechanism to relieve depression and anxiety.”

b.. Another US study found that among the homes with strict fathers, only 18 per cent had children used alcohol or drugs at all. In contrast, among mother-dominated homes, 35 per cent had children who used drugs frequently.

c.. A New Zealand study of nearly 1000 children observed over a period of 15 years found that children who have watched their parents separate are more likely to use illegal drugs than those whose parents stay together.

Fatherlessness increase mental health problems

a.. From nations as diverse as Finland and South Africa, a number of studies have reported that anywhere from 50 to 80 per cent of psychiatric patients come from broken homes.

b.. A Canadian study of teenagers discharged from psychiatric hospitals found that only 16 per cent were living with both parents when they were admitted.

c.. A study of nearly 14,000 Dutch adolescents between the ages of 12 to 19 found that, “In general, children from one parent and stepparent families reported lower self-esteem, more symptoms of anxiety and loneliness, more depressed mood and more suicidal thoughts than children from intact families.”

Fatherlessness and family breakdown cost Australia 3.5 billion dollars per year

a.. In Australia it has been estimated that marriage breakdown costs $2.5 billion annually. Each separation is estimated to cost society some $12,000.

b.. Also, Australian industry is reported to lose production of more than $1 billion a year due to problems of family breakdown.

c.. Homelessness is also closely linked with family breakdown. A recent Australian study conducted at two Melbourne universities has found that children whose biological parents stay together are about three times less likely to become homeless than those from other family types.

Fatherlessness increases child abuse

a.. A 1994 study of 52,000 children found that those who are most at risk of being abused are those who are not living with both parents.

b.. A Finnish study of nearly 4,000 ninth-grade girls found that “stepfather-daughter incest was about 15 times as common as father-daughter incest”.

c.. In Australia, former Human Rights Commissioner Mr Brian Burdekin has reported a 500 to 600 per cent increase in sexual abuse of girls in families where the adult male was not the natural father.

Fatherlessness and Family Breakdown are the major social problems of our society

With the rise of fatherlessness Australia and the Western world has also experienced a marked rise in social problems. And the brunt of these problems have been borne by children. We owe it to our children to do better. We urgently need to address the twin problems of fatherlessness and family breakdown. Public policy must begin to address these crucial areas. Until we tackle these problems, our children and our societies will continue to suffer.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

“Wilky Fain is fighting for equal custody of his 7-year-old daughter and
supports the new bill.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – When parents seek custody of their children, mothers usually receive more rights than fathers, so some Tennessee parents are trying to level the playing field.

Wilky Fain’s daughter Addison is 7-years-old now. He said it wasn’t until 8 months after she was born that a judge let him see her.

Fain is also president of the group Families Unite, and he made a documentary about his struggle in family court.

“Because of the discretion of a judge,” Fain said, “I’ve never been able to drop my little girl off at school. Because of the discretion of a judge, I’ve never picked my little girl up at school.”

Now, he and other parents are supporting a bill in the state House that would make courts order equal parenting time unless one of those parents is unfit.

This isn’t the first time a bill proposing equal custody rights for mothers and fathers will come before the state legislature, but supporters are hoping this is the time that it passes.

David W. Garrett is an attorney who focuses on family law.

Garrett said, “The problem with it is there are many circumstances where it’s not in the child’s best interest to be with both parents half the time…I think instead of looking at what is best in each case for the children it’s going to arbitrarily say 50/50 unless you prove otherwise.”

Garrett said according to the experts, children need a stable home, instead of constantly going back and forth.

Fain, who said he still doesn’t see his daughter as often as he would like, disagrees.
He said, “It’s better to have both parents. Children adapt to their environment…You can burn my house, you can take my car, but why would you take my kids from me?”
A House committee will hear from opponents and supporters of the bill Tuesday.

In “Parental Alienation must be excluded” (Capitol Weekly, Feb. 8), Preston Thymes, the head of public relations for the domestic violence service provider Shelter Outreach Plus, criticizes efforts by Fathers & Families and others to promote recognition of Parental Alienation. While Thymes and Shelter Outreach Plus often do noble work in aiding battered women, Thymes misunderstands several key aspects of Parental Alienation and child custody battles.

The Family Law Section of the State Bar of California explains that alienation tactics often include:

“[C]ancel[ing] the other parent’s visit without telling the child that the visit has been cancelled, creating a ‘let down’ for the child when that parent does not ‘show up’ for the visit. Threats could also be made against the child for wanting to have visitation with the other parent – ‘Fine, if you want to see [your other parent] tonight, then you are grounded for the rest of the week.’

Guilt can also be used to influence a child to avoid visitation – ‘I’m not feeling well and I wish you would stay here with me, but if you have to see [your other parent] I will understand.’ Rewards can also be used – ‘Sure, you can see [your other parent] today, but I thought we would go play laser tag with your friends today.’”

Parental Alienation is a common, well-documented phenomenon that is the subject of numerous studies and articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. For example, a longitudinal study published by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700 “high conflict” divorce cases over a 12 year period and found that elements of PA were present in the vast majority of the cases studied.

At Fathers & Families, we receive thousands of heart-wrenching calls and letters from parents whose children have been taught to fear or hate them. Both mothers and fathers can be perpetrators of Parental Alienation, but the true victims are always the children.
Thymes asserts that recognizing Parental Alienation as a legitimate issue in custody cases would endanger abused children. But in genuine cases of domestic violence or child abuse, all sides agree that courts need to protect children from abusive parents. Yet there is a large body of evidence which shows that false accusations of domestic violence are a major problem in child custody cases.

Unfortunately, Shelter Outreach Plus, like many domestic violence service providers, displays a troubling lack of awareness of this problem. Thymes writes:
“At Shelter Outreach plus, we render any claims of Parental Alienation invalid…we absolutely do everything we can to keep [the father alleged to be abusive] away from those children [including] our legal advocates through restraining orders…”

Thymes apparently feels that a mere accusation equals the truth, and that judges should not even consider whether an accuser is misleading the court.
Thymes and Shelter Outreach Plus favor AB 612, a bill to bar litigants or custody evaluators from making any reference to Parental Alienation in family court. This deeply-flawed bill, which will be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee this spring, is opposed by practically all organizations which represent the professionals who work in the family law field.

Those listed as opposed include: the Judicial Council; the California Judges Association; the Family Law Section of the State Bar; the California Psychological Association; the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists; the Association of Family Conciliation Courts; and numerous others.

The California Psychological Association writes that the bill ignores the “significant scientific and agreed-upon knowledge base of the last 30 years on children who are alienated” and describes AB 612 as a “scientifically inaccurate measure [which] assumes the truth of any accusation of abuse.”

The Assembly analysis explains that AB 612 is so extreme that if it is passed, in court “something as simple as a child not wanting to visit a parent cannot, potentially as a matter of law, be caused by the other parent.”
The analysis notes:

”[A]ny broad restriction on the information the court can consider could well unintentionally compromise the court’s ability to make determinations that are in children’s best interests, and could inadvertently compromise child safety.”

Certainly there are fathers (and mothers) who have alienated their children through inept parenting, narcissism, drug or alcohol problems, or abuse, and who attempt to shift the blame to their exes by falsely claiming Parental Alienation. Sometimes, as research by Janet R. Johnston Ph.D. of San Jose State University confirms, Parental Alienation exists but is only one of several factors causing a deterioration of the parent-child bond.

Sometimes parental alienators are unaware of their harmful actions.

Nevertheless, Parental Alienation is a serious problem. When fact-finding in custody cases, judges and custody evaluators must be able to properly consider all available evidence. When abuse is alleged, the accusation merits serious consideration.

How to Address The Denial Of A Parent’s Court Ordered Access, Visitation, and/or Parental Rights

The US Dept. of Health & Human Services conducted a study on this titled “The Survey of Absentee Parents”. The results showed that 60% of the fathers needed to file for enforcement of their court orders within six months of receiving it, and that within five years, lost all contact with the children due to frustration with the lack of help from the courts. This is why it’s so important to learn what you can be doing.

Part of the problem with getting visitation enforced is knowing what to do to prove your case.

Instructions

Things You’ll Need:

Daily Journal

Chronological Statement

Step 1

See linked article on “How to Put Together Evidence of Denial of Visitation/Access in Violation of a Court Order”.

Step 2

It’s most important that you keep a DAILY JOURNAL (see linked article) of all your activities, including any contact with the child(ren). There does not need to be any violence for a claim of violence to be filed. She can get a restraining order because she fears him due to her preventing him from seeing her child. A restraining order can be filed up to a year after a supposed event in many states. With the journal, you can look back and see what you were doing that day and who were witnesses to it, such as being 30 miles away, as was the case with one father.

He was helping to remove a tree out of the roof of a neighbor’s house. Five months later, the mother claimed that on that night, she had shot out her car windows, and had a police report to prove it. She also claimed he bragged about it. With the Journal, he was able to produce witnesses at the Restraining Order Hearing to show she was lying. However, there’s a drawback to this. In my 20 years of experience, when the mother is unsuccessful in a false allegation of domestic violence, within two years she will progress to child abuse and/or child sexual abuse allegations.

Step 3

See linked article on Recording Conversations. Remember, you can’t just record, you also have to transcribe the conversations your daily journal.

Step 4

Take note here that in some states, denial of court order visitation is treated the same as Interference With Custody or Parental Abduction. Though Prosecuting Attorneys usually refuse to enforce the law, getting a police report can help as evidence. In Missouri, the law is RSMO 565.156 §5

Step 5

If there’s an intent to deny access, prepare a “Notice of Intent to Exercise Visitation” letter stating the specific dates as laid out in your order. Add to this a “Notice of Intent to Exercise Parental Rights” in the same legal format of your other court papers. Sign both and make six copies. See links below for examples.

Step 6

Mail the originals “CERTIFIED MAIL” and another set with just “DELIVERY CONFIRMATION” (75¢ + postage). If she rejects the Certified Letter, she will still receive the letter with Delivery Confirmation. Remember that these are two different type of mail. To get a Confirmation of Delivery printout, go to the USPS web site at the link below.

Step 7

If the Certified letter or the Certified Letter Confirmation of Delivery Card, with her signature on it come back, attach either (letter unopened) to a copy of the “Notice of Intent to Exercise Visitation” letter and “Notice of Intent to Exercise Parental Rights”, plus the printout of the Delivery Confirmation from USPS. Take these documents to the County Courthouse and have the Clerk of the Court notarize and them place them in your case file. It’s very important that you repeat this process each time you are to exercise your visitation until either she obeys the orders or you go to court on it. This file gets read by the judge before any hearing, so he will see your effort to resolve this issue without involving the court.

File the remaining copies for future use.

Step 8

Repeat process for each time you are to exercise your visitation until she either obeys the orders or you go to court on it.

Step 9

If the other parent continues to deny you access, you need to decide if you want to use an attorney or go Propria Persona (Pro Se) in taking an enforcement action to the courts. If you wish to use an attorney, you need to take the time to interview several attorneys before picking the one to work with (See linked article on how to do this). Prepare a Chronological Statement (see linked article in preparing one) expressing a history from the time you met her up until this need for action.

Step 10

A common complain in dealing with these action in court is a claim of bias on the part of the judge. To address any potential of this it is best to use Court Watchers, which are person who are there to witness the proceedings, and not to give testimony. Aside from friends, contact the high school or college about students from government class getting credit for attending the hearing. Each should be equipped with a hard tablet, pen, and a Court Evaluation Form (see link below). They should not sit together in a group, being spread out in the gallery.

Step 11

If you decide to represent yourself in court, check with your Clerk of the Court for forms for filing an enforcement action. If they do not have one specific for visitation, the ones for child support will work as a template. You need to produce a “Notice of Exercise of Parental Rights” See link for example), filing with the court and having the judge sign it. Serve or have it served on the other parent, depending on the requirements of your state. In Kansas, it can be sent Certified Mail.

Step 12

For more extensive advice specific to your case, see Dads House Educational Group for association with other dealing with this situation.

Step 13

Produce a “Notice of the Court of Denial of Exercise of Parental Rights” and “Motion to Show Cause for Contempt of Court of Denial of Visitation” (see links below) for filing with the court.

Note: This is where it can get complicate in what choices you wish to make. If held in Contempt of Court, this is consider a “CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES”, which is grounds for a Change in the Custody Arrangements. You or your attorney needs to have a Motion for Change of Custody ready to hand the judge (see article on custody changes).

For Extensive advice on this, and association with others dealing in it, see Dads House in Yahoo! Groups. It’s Free. See link below

In states like Missouri, you can file to have child support put on hold, not stopped, until action is taken to address denial of access.

A common claim is that the kids won’t come, but that is likely to be a symptom of Parental Alienation Syndrome, so don’t think this is a rejection of you. Just make note of it. Do not ask for the children to say it to you directly.

The Domestic Violence Industry’s War on Men

The industry that has grown up around domestic violence (DV), or, as it is more precisely situated these days in research circles, intimate partner violence (IPV), began in good faith decades ago as a legitimate campaign to help women trapped in abusive relationships.

Over the years, as the triumphalist feminist revolution’s long march through the institutions of the West proceeded with eerily unchallenged vigor, DV emerged as a highly politicized touchstone justifying women’s entitlements — legal, economic, familial — at the expense of boys’ and men’s human rights.

A tipping point in the DV chronology, when the focus amongst militant feminists shifted from helping individual women to the more totalitarian ambition of reducing the male population to cultural dhimmitude, can be traced back in time to December 6, 1989, and in space to a school two miles north of my front door.

December 6, 2009, marked the 20th anniversary of a unique tragedy in Western history, the systematic massacre of 14 women engineering students, with injury to 13 others, at Montreal’s École Polytechnique by a lone young gunman, Marc Lepine, who killed himself at the end of his shooting spree.

As an act of violence against women, the Montreal Massacre had no prequel or sequel. Lepine — his real name was Gamil Gharbi, but Lepine chose to identify with his québécois mother rather than his brutal, misogynistic, Algerian-born father — was a sociopath, unaligned with any faith, political movement, or identity grievance group. He was no jihadi. Although one could argue that the massacre presented elements of an honor killing, Lepine’s crime was essentially sui generis.

Ironically enough, if he were a jihadi, feminists would have been stymied in their rush to collective judgment, for the standard reflex following jihadist incidents is to repudiate any linkage of the act with Islam and to warn against expressions of Islamophobia.

But in the case of the Montreal Massacre, a diametrically opposed instinct prevailed. Because Lepine’s only distinguishing feature was his maleness, the tragedy sanctioned unbridled hostility toward all heterosexual men. Indeed, for elite feminist apparatchiks, then in their most muscular and misandric phase, bliss it was in that bloody Montreal dawn to be alive.

Brazenly, without bothering to adduce any substantiating chain of evidence, there being none, feminist spokeswomen linked the horrific crime of a lone sociopath to the general phenomenon of domestic violence against women. Marc Lepine “became” all men who want to control women — eventually all heterosexual men — and December 6 achieved instant sacralised status as a day of national mourning that, for fevered rhetoric and solemnity, eclipsed even 9/11 memorials.

By contrast [to Americans’ lessening interest in 9/11 memorials], the Canadian public never seems to weary of the annual December 6 tribute to the 1989 Montreal Polytechnique shooting massacre of 14 women. Indeed, 12/6’s branding power burgeons with every anniversary: The theme of violence against women dominates the media; new physical memorials are constructed; additional programs decrying domestic violence against women are entrenched in school curricula; masses of white ribbons are distributed; more stringent gun control is more strenuously urged. Their cumulative effect is to link all Canadian men to a global conspiracy against women of jihadist proportions.

Feminists everywhere in the West appropriated its emotive themes to lend greater credence to an already widespread pernicious tripartite myth: namely, that all men — the “patriarchy” — are inherently prone to violence against women, that all women are potential victims of male aggression, and that female violence against men is never unprovoked, but always an act of self-defense against overt or covert male aggression.

The unspoken corollary to these falsehoods is that violence perpetrated against males, whether by other males or by females, is deemed unworthy of official recognition or more than minimal legal redress, and that while female suffering must be acknowledged as socially intolerable, male suffering may not make a parallel moral claim.

In fact, as any number of peer-reviewed research and government statistics make clear, although women are far more likely to report domestic abuse, equal numbers of men and women experience some form of DV during their lifetimes; men and women initiate abuse in equal measure; and far from any inherent “patriarchal” instinct to control women, DV — in Judeo-Christian culture at any rate — is almost always attributable to individual psychological dysfunction (see citation for Abusegate RADAR report below).

Definition: Parental Alienation is a term which is used to describe the process of one divorced parent inappropriately influencing a child into thinking that the other parent is bad, evil or worthless.

Definition: Parental Alienation Syndrome is the resulting condition that a child who has been subjected to Parental Alienation can have, in which, under the influence of an adult whom they trust, inappropriately believe that one of their parents is worthless, bad or evil.

Definition:Hostile Aggressive Parenting (HAP), also known as Parental Alienation, is a term which is used to describe the process of one divorced parent inappropriately influencing a child into thinking that the other parent is bad, evil or worthless.

The most widely reported form of alienation is parental alienation – where a parent tries to sabotage the relationship their child has with the other parent. This is quite common when divorcing someone who has a personality disorder.

Examples:

Parental Alienation can take many forms including:

Verbal criticism of the other parent – derogatory comments, telling stories about the other parent, portraying their bad side, picking up on their faults, highlighting their mistakes, drawing unfavorable comparisons between them and others.

Withholding or discouraging contact with the other parent – not allowing visits or keeping visits inappropriately short. Moving to another geographic location to limit contact, forgetting or impeding visitation rights, forcing the other parent to jump through hoops or meet inappropriate criteria or conditions in order to see the children.

Denying phone contact or sabotaging phone contact by not picking up the phone, turning the phone off, being out when the phone call comes. etc.

Intimidating the child – making the child feel bad for loving the other parent, criticizing or mocking the child’s interest in the other parent or discouraging the child from spending time with the other parent. Forcing the child to meet stringent criteria or perform extra chores or pass certain tests in order to be “rewarded” with contact with the other parent. Punishing the child by removal of affection or privileges after spending time with the other parent.

What it feels like:

Parental alienation is a form of emotional child abuse. Children instinctively love both parents and feel immense stress when asked by one parent to choose between them and the other parent. When a child is told that one of their parents is bad they identify with that parent and they feel as though they themselves are bad. They feel shame for who they are and they feel shame for secretly loving the other parent.

It is absolutely critical to a child’s sense of security and self esteem that they be allowed to love both of their biological parents. That doesn’t mean you have to condone bad behavior. It does mean though that you have to allow the child to love who they love and to feel what they feel without shame or punishment or control or manipulation.

It is very common for divorcing parents to feel anger at the other parent and to express that anger in front of the children. However, it is highly inappropriate for parents to put children in that position. If you need validation for the way you feel towards your ex-spouse you should talk to a friend or a therapist about it – not to the children.

It’s also common for people with personality disorders to launch their distortion campaigns about the other parent in front of the children. This is highly destructive.

What NOT to Do:

Don’t verbally berate your child’s other parent in front of them – no matter what they have done. When a child hears that his parent is bad he hears you say that he is bad.

Don’t try to discourage your child’s love for their parent. Separate your feelings from your child’s feelings and understand that they will make up their own mind about what they think.

Don’t limit your child’s contact with the other parent – except when they are in danger of abuse.

Don’t lie to your children. Be honest with them if they ask a question – but don’t take it as a license to say more than you really need to. If, for example, your child asks you “did mommy do something wrong?” you can say “I think mommy made a mistake” and leave it at that.

Don’t discuss grown up issues with children.

Don’t interrogate your child about what the other parent says or does. If they want to tell you something let them, but leave it at that.

Don’t try to compensate for a parent who is trying to alienate you with gifts or strange behavior. Just be you. Your child is able to separate fact from fiction in cartoons. They can do it in real life too.

What TO Do:

Put the best interests of your child ahead of any personal feelings you may have.

Affirm your child. Tell them you love them. Praise their accomplishments, encourage them to be all they can be.

Be consistent and reliable. Keep your promises.

Document clearly incidents where you feel the other parent is trying to alienate your children from you.

Consult with a COMPETENT attorney about your options. In general, courts do not look favorably on parents who try to alienate their children from the other parent. However, your complaints should be specific and unemotional – with the best interests of the child at heart.

Confront the other parent unemotionally and clearly – in writing is best – if you feel that they are making a mistake. Keep a record of what you have written.

Report any acts of violence, threats of violence or self harm immediately to the authorities.

For More Information & Support

If you suspect you may be related to – or in a relationship with – someone who suffers from a personality disorder, we encourage you to learn all you can about personality disorders and get support to help you to cope. Explore our site to learn about more Common Traits & Behaviors of Personality Disorders or discover real life stories and discuss your own situation in our Support Forum.

The comparison of parental alienation to the “Stockholm syndrome”

Ludwig.F. Lowenstein Ph.D

Southern England Psychological Services

2006

What follows is in great part fact and what is not fact is based on supposition and psychological assessment of how the Stockholm Syndrome develops and how it has worked in the case of Natascha Kampusch recently reported in the press. She was abducted and kept in a prison in an underground cell without natural light and air being pumped into her enclosure. The Stockholm Syndrome was coined in 1973 by Nils Bejerot, a psychiatrist, while working for the police. It occurred that there was a bank robbery and four bank clerks were taken hostage by an armed robber who threatened to kill them. To the surprise of the police, the hostages stated that they had no wish to be rescued indicating that they felt sympathy for their captor.

It was assumed that the feeling of stress and helplessness and possibly a desire to survive led to this unlikely scenario. All the captives were eventually released without harm. The hostage taker himself must have been influenced by the behaviour of his victims as they were influenced by him. One can only wonder how this phenomenon occurred after such a short captivity. In the case of Natascha Kampusch her period of captivity of eight years probably brought about deeper psychological changes and more enduring ones.

As a specialist in the area of parental alienation and parental alienation syndrome where I have acted as a psychological expert in the courts, there appears to be a considerable similarity between parental alienation and the Stockholm Syndrome. The alienator in the case of the Stockholm Syndrome also needs to extinguish any desire in the victim’s past, seeking to demonstrate any allegiance to anyone other than the powerful captor of that individual.

Here too is demonstrated the power of the alienator and the insignificance of the power of the alienated party/parties. It is almost certain that Natascha Kampusch had opportunity in the past to escape from her captor, yet chose not to do so. This was despite her initial closeness to her family. A combination of fear, indoctrination and “learned helplessness”, promoted the total loyalty and obedience of the child to her captor. This captor was no longer viewed, as was the case initially, as evil but as necessary to the child’s well-being and her survival. A similar scenario occurs in the case of children who are alienated against an absent parent.

My forthcoming book about to be published and my website http://www.parental-alienation.info provides information as to why Natascha may have remained so slavishly with her captor for eight years of her young life. Why she decided finally to escape her enslavement will in due course be established. I will attempt to explain what might have occurred to finally induce her to escape.

A child who has had a good relationship with the now shunned parent will state: “I don’t need my father/mother; I only need my mother/father. Such a statement is based on the brainwashing received and the power of the alienator who is indoctrinating the child to sideline the previously loving parent.

In the case of the Stockholm Syndrome, we have in some ways a similar scenario. Here the two natural loving parents have been sidelined by the work of subtle or direct alienation by the perpetrator of the abduction of the young girl. At age 10, the child is helpless to resist the power of her abductor.

To the question: “How does the abductor eventually become her benefactor?”, we may note the process is not so dissimilar to the brainwashing carried by the custodial parent. This is done for the double reason of: 1) Gaining the total control over the child and consequently its dependence upon them. 2) To sideline the other parent and to do all possible to prevent and/or curtail contact between the child and the absent parent/parents.

The primary reason for such behaviour is the intractable hostility of the custodial parents towards one another. This reason does not exist in the case of the abductor of a child such as occurred in the case of Natascha Kambusch. Nevertheless the captor wished to totally alienate or eliminate the child’s loyalty or any feeling towards her natural parents. Due to the long period away from her parents and a total dependence for survival on her captor, Natascha’s closeness to her family gradually faded. She may even have felt that her own parents were making little or no effort to find her and rescue her. This view may also have been inculcated by her captor.

Her captor’s total mastery and control over her, eventually gave her a feeling of security. She could depend on the man to look after her with food, shelter, warmth, protection and hence led to her survival. Such behaviour on the part of the captor led over time not only to “learned helplessness” and dependence, but in a sense to gratefulness. As he was the only human being in her life this was likely to happen. She therefore became a ready victim of what is commonly termed the “Stockholm Syndrome” or the victim of “Parental Alienation.”

This led even to her beginning to love her captor. This view has been substantiated by the fact that Natascha found it difficult to live and feel any real closeness to her natural parents once she was rescued or once she ran away from her captor. She even pined for the loss of the captor who had since committed suicide. Even her speech had been altered from the native Austrian or Viennese dialect to the North German speech due to the fact that she only had access to the outside world via radio and television. This again, however, was carefully monitored by her captor. He controlled what she could see on television and listen to on the radio from outside her underground cell. There was little in Natascha’s present life to remind her of her past except for the dress that she wore when she was captured.

While she developed physically from 10-18 years, her weight changed but little. Why did she decide eventually to leave her captor? This is a question that requires an answer. It is the view of the current author that the answer lies in the fact that she may have had a quarrel with her captor, possibly over a very minor issue. The result was her leaving her captor and then regretting doing so, especially after she heard of his death. By the time her captor, undoubtedly fearing the retribution by the law, had ended his life, she had pined for him.

After eight years or living in close proximity to his victim, some form of intimacy undoubtedly occurred including a sexual one. This led to a mutual need and even dependence. It is likely that the “learned helplessness” of the victim succumbed eventually a caring, perhaps even loving relationship developing. It is also likely that the psychological explanation is that attribution, helplessness and depression in the victim for the loss of her parents quickly gave way to seeking to make the best of her situation while under the total domination of her captor.

Again the same scenario occurs in the case of parental alienation where the power of the dominant custodial parent programmes the child/children to eschew or marginalise the absent parent. That absent parent no longer appears to be important and is even likely to be viewed as damaging to the child’s survival.

Liberals rightly criticize America’s high rate of incarceration. Claiming to be the freest country on Earth, the United States incarcerates a larger percentage of its population than Iran or Syria. Over two million people, or nearly one in 50 adults, excluding the elderly, are incarcerated, the highest proportion in the world. Some seven million Americans, or 3.2 percent, are under penal supervision.

Many are likely to be innocent. In The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence Stratton document how due process protections are routinely ignored, grand juries are neutered, frivolous prosecutions abound, and jury trials are increasingly rare. More recently, in Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (2009), Harvey Silverglate shows how federal prosecutors are criminalizing more and more of the population. “Innocence projects” — projects of “a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing” — attest that people are railroaded into prison. As we will see, incarcerations without trial are now routine.

The U.S. prison population has risen dramatically in the last four decades. Ideologically, the rise is invariably attributed to “law-and-order” conservatives, who indeed seldom deny their own role (or indifference). In fact, few conservatives understand what they are defending.

Conservatives who rightly decry “judicial activism” in civil law are often blind to the connected perversion of criminal justice. While a politicized judiciary does free the guilty, it also criminalizes the -innocent.

But traditionalists upholding law and order were not an innovation of the 1970s. A newer and more militant force helped create the “carceral state.” In The Prison and the Gallows (2006), feminist scholar Marie Gottschalk points out that traditional conservatives were not the prime instigators, and blames “interest groups and social movements not usually associated with penal conservatism.” Yet she names only one: “the women’s movement.”

While America’s criminalization may have a number of contributing causes, it coincides precisely with the rise of organized feminism. “The women’s movement became a vanguard of conservative law-and-order politics,” Gottschalk writes. “Women’s organizations played a central role in the consolidation of this conservative victims’ rights movement that emerged in the 1970s.”

Gottschalk then twists her counterintuitive finding to condemn “conservatives” for the influx, portraying feminists as passive victims without responsibility. “Feminists prosecuting the war on rape and domestic violence” were somehow “captured and co-opted by the law-and-order agenda of politicians, state officials, and conservative groups.” Yet nothing indicates that feminists offered the slightest resistance to this political abduction.

Feminists, despite Gottschalk’s muted admission of guilt, did lead the charge toward wholesale incarceration. Feminist ideology has radicalized criminal justice and eroded centuries-old constitutional protections: New crimes have been created; old crimes have been redefined politically; the distinction between crime and private behavior has been erased; the presumption of innocence has been eliminated; false accusations go unpunished; patently innocent people are jailed without trial. “The new feminist jurisprudence hammers away at some of the most basic foundations of our criminal law system,” Michael Weiss and Cathy Young write in a Cato Institute paper. “Chief among them is the presumption that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.”

Feminists and other sexual radicals have even managed to influence the law to target conservative groups themselves. Racketeering statutes are marshaled to punish non-violent abortion demonstrators, and “hate crimes” laws attempt to silence critics of the homosexual agenda. Both are supported by “civil liberties” groups. And these are only the most notorious; there are others.

Feminists have been the most authoritarian pressure group throughout much of American history. “It is striking what an uncritical stance earlier women reformers took toward the state,” Gottschalk observes. “They have played central roles in … uncritically pushing for more enhanced policing powers.”

What Gottschalk is describing is feminism’s version of Stalinism: the process whereby radical movements commandeer the instruments of state repression as they trade ideological purity for power.

Aggressive feminist lobbying in the legislatures and courts since the 1970s redefined rape to make it indistinguishable from consensual sex. Over time, a woman no longer had to prove that she was forced to have non-consensual sex, but a man had to prove that sex was consensual (or prove that no sex had, in fact, happened). Non-consent was gradually eliminated as a definition, and consent became simply a mitigating factor for the defense. By 1989, the Washington State Supreme Court openly shifted the burden of proving consent to the defendant when it argued that the removal of legislative language requiring non-consent for rape “evidences legislative intent to shift the burden of proof on the issue to the defense” and approved this blatantly unconstitutional presumption of guilt. The result, write Weiss and Young, was not “to jail more violent rapists — lack of consent is easy enough for the state to prove in those cases — but to make it easier to send someone to jail for failing to get an explicit nod of consent from an apparently willing partner before engaging in sex.”

Men accused of rape today enjoy few safeguards. “People can be charged with virtually no evidence,” says Boston former sex-crimes prosecutor Rikki Klieman. “If a female comes in and says she was sexually assaulted, then on her word alone, with nothing else — and I mean nothing else, no investigation — the police will go out and arrest someone.”

Almost daily we see men released after decades in prison because DNA testing proves they were wrongly convicted. Yet the rape industry is so powerful that proof of innocence is no protection. “A defendant who can absolutely prove his innocence … can nonetheless still be convicted, based solely on the word of the accuser,” write Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson in Until Proven Innocent. In North Carolina, simply “naming the person accused” along with the time and place “will support a verdict of guilty.” Crime laboratories are notorious for falsifying results to obtain convictions.

The feminist dogma that “women never lie” goes largely unchallenged. “Any honest veteran sex assault investigator will tell you that rape is one of the most falsely reported crimes,” says Craig Silverman, a former Colorado prosecutor known for zealous prosecutions. Purdue University sociologist Eugene Kanin found that “41% of the total disposed rape cases were officially declared false” during a nine-year period, “that is, by the complainant’s admission that no rape had occurred.” Kanin discovered three functions of false accusations: “providing an alibi, seeking revenge, and obtaining sympathy and attention.” The Center for Military Readiness (CMR) adds that “false rape accusations also have been filed to extort money from celebrities, to gain sole custody of children in divorce cases, and even to escape military deployments to war zones.”

In the infamous Duke University lacrosse case, prosecutor Michael Nifong suppressed exculpating evidence and prosecuted men he knew to be innocent, according to Taylor and Johnson. Nifong himself was eventually disbarred, but he had willing accomplices among assistant prosecutors, police, crime lab technicians, judges, the bar, and the media. “Innocent men are arrested and even imprisoned as a result of bogus claims,” writes Linda Fairstein, former head of the sex-crimes unit for the Manhattan District Attorney, who estimates that half of all reports are unfounded.

Innocence projects are almost wholly occupied with rape cases (though they try to disguise this fact). Yet no systematic investigation has been undertaken by the media or civil libertarians into why so many innocent citizens are so easily incarcerated on fabricated allegations. The exoneration of the Duke students on obviously trumped-up charges triggered few investigations — and no official ones — to determine how widespread such rigged justice is against those unable to garner media attention.

The world of rape accusations displays features similar to other feminist gender crimes: media invective against the accused, government-paid “victim advocates” to secure convictions, intimidation of anyone who defends the accused. “Nobody dependent on the mainstream media for information about rape would have any idea how frequent false claims are,” write Taylor and Johnson. “Most journalists simply ignore evidence contradicting the feminist line.” What they observe of rape characterizes feminist justice generally: “calling a rape complainant ‘the victim’ — with no ‘alleged’.” “Unnamed complainants are labeled ‘victims’ even before legal proceedings determine that a crime has been committed,” according to CMR.

Rape hysteria, false accusations, and distorted scholarship are rampant on university campuses, which ostensibly exist to pursue truth. “If a woman did falsely accuse a man of rape,” opines one “women’s studies” graduate, “she may have had reasons to. Maybe she wasn’t raped, but he clearly violated her in some way.” This mentality pervades feminist jurisprudence, precluding innocence by obliterating the distinction between crime and hurt feelings. A Vassar College assistant dean believes false accusations foster men’s education: “I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration.… ‘If I didn’t violate her, could I have?’”

Conservative critics of the Duke fiasco avoided feminism’s role but instead emphasized race — a minor feature of the case but a safer one to criticize. Little evidence indicates that white people are being systematically incarcerated on fabricated accusations of non-existent crimes against blacks. This is precisely what is happening to men, both white and black, accused of rape and other “gender” crimes that feminists have turned into a political agenda.

The Kobe Bryant case demonstrates that a black man accused by a white woman is also vulnerable. Historically, this was the more common pattern. Our race-conscious society is conditioned to remember lynching as a racial atrocity, forgetting that the lynched were usually black men accused by white women. Feminist scholars spin this as “the dominant white male ideology behind lynching … that white womanhood was in need of protection against black men,” suggesting fantastically that white “patriarchy” used rape accusations to break up a progressive political romance developing between black men and white women. With false rape accusations, the races have changed, but the sexes have remained constant.

Violent Lies
“Domestic violence” is an even more purely political crime. “The battered-women’s movement turned out to be even more vulnerable to being co-opted by the state and conservative penal forces,” writes Gottschalk, again with contortion. Domestic violence groups are uniformly feminist, not “conservative,” though here too conservatives have enabled feminists to exchange principles for power.

Like rape, domestic “violence” is defined so loosely that it need not be violent. The U.S. Justice Department definition includes “extreme jealousy and possessiveness” and “name calling and constant criticizing.” For such “crimes” men are jailed with no trial. In fact, the very category of “domestic” violence was developed largely to circumvent due process requirements of conventional assault statutes. A study published in Criminology and Public Policy found that no one accused of domestic violence could be found innocent, since every arrestee received punishment.

Here, too, false accusations are rewarded. “Women lie every day,” attests Ottawa Judge Dianne Nicholas. “Every day women in court say, ‘I made it up. I’m lying. It didn’t happen’ — and they’re not charged.” Amazingly, bar associations sponsor seminars instructing women how to fabricate accusations. Thomas Kiernan, writing in the New Jersey Law Journal, expressed his astonishment at “the number of women attending the seminars who smugly — indeed boastfully — announced that they had already sworn out false or grossly exaggerated domestic violence complaints against their hapless husbands, and that the device worked!” He added, “The lawyer-lecturers invariably congratulated the self-confessed miscreants.”

Domestic violence has become “a backwater of tautological pseudo-theory,” write Donald Dutton and Kenneth Corvo in Aggression and Violent Behavior. “No other area of established social welfare, criminal justice, public health, or behavioral intervention has such weak evidence in support of mandated practice.” Scholars and practitioners have repeatedly documented how “allegations of abuse are now used for tactical advantage” in custody cases and “become part of the gamesmanship of divorce.” Domestic abuse has become “an area of law mired in intellectual dishonesty and injustice,” according to the Rutgers Law Review.

Restraining orders removing men from their homes and children are summarily issued without any evidence. Due process protections are so routinely ignored that, the New Jersey Law Journal reports, one judge told his colleagues, “Your job is not to become concerned about the constitutional rights of the man that you’re violating.” Attorney David Heleniak calls New Jersey’s statute “a due process fiasco” in the Rutgers Law Review. New Jersey court literature openly acknowledges that due process is ignored because it “perpetuates the cycle of power and control whereby the [alleged?] perpetrator remains the one with the power and the [alleged?] victim remains powerless.” Omitting “alleged” is standard even in statutes, where, the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reports, “the mere allegation of domestic abuse … may shift the burden of proof to the defendant.”

Special “integrated domestic violence courts” presume guilt and then, says New York’s openly feminist chief judge, “make batterers and abusers take responsibility for their actions.” They can seize property, including homes, without the accused being convicted or even formally charged or present to defend himself. Lawyer Walter Fox describes these courts as “pre-fascist”: “Domestic violence courts … are designed to get around the protections of the criminal code. The burden of proof is reduced or removed, and there’s no presumption of innocence.”

Forced confessions are widespread. Pennsylvania men are incarcerated unless they sign forms stating, “I have physically and emotionally battered my partner.” The man must then describe the violence, even if he insists he committed none. “I am responsible for the violence I used,” the forms declare. “My behavior was not provoked.”

Child-support Chokehold
Equally feminist is the child-support machinery, whereby millions have their family finances plundered and their lives placed under penal supervision without having committed any legal infraction. Once they have nothing left to loot, they too are incarcerated without trial.

Contrary to government propaganda (and Common Law tradition), child support today has little to do with fathers abandoning their children, deserting their marriages, or even agreeing to a divorce. It is automatically assessed on all non-custodial parents, even those involuntarily divorced without grounds (“no-fault”). It is an entitlement for all divorcing mothers, regardless of their actions, and coerced from fathers, regardless of their fidelity. The “deadbeat dad” is far less likely to be a man who abandoned the offspring he callously sired than to be a loving father who has been, as attorney Jed Abraham writes in From Courtship to Courtroom, “forced to finance the filching of his own children.”

Federalized enforcement was rationalized to reimburse taxpayers for welfare. Under feminist pressure, taxpayers instead subsidize middle-class divorce, through federal payments to states based on the amount of child support they collect. By profiting off child support at federal taxpayer expense, state governments have a financial incentive to encourage as many single-mother homes as possible. They, in turn, encourage divorce with a guaranteed, tax-free windfall to any divorcing mother.

Here, too, “the burden of proof may be shifted to the defendant,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Like Kafka’s Joseph K., the “defendant” may not even know the charge against him, “if the court does not explicitly clarify the charge facing the [allegedly?] delinquent parent,” says NCSL. Further, “not all child support contempt proceedings classified as criminal are entitled to a jury trial,” and “even indigent obligors are not necessarily entitled to a lawyer.” Thus defendants must prove their innocence against unspecified accusations, without counsel, and without a jury.

Assembly-line hearings can last 30 seconds to two minutes, during which parents are sentenced to months or years in prison. Many receive no hearing but are accused in an “expedited judicial process” before a black-robed lawyer known as a “judge surrogate.” Because these officials require no legislative confirmation, they are not accountable to citizens or their representatives. Unlike true judges, they may lobby to create the same laws they adjudicate, violating the separation of powers. Often they are political activists in robes. One surrogate judge, reports the Telegraph of Hudson, New Hampshire, simultaneously worked “as a radical feminist lobbying on proposed legislation” dealing with child support.

Though governments sensationalize “roundups” of alleged “deadbeat dads,” who are jailed for months and even years without trial, no government information whatever is available on incarcerations. The Bureau of Justice Statistics is utterly silent on child-support incarcerations. Rebecca May of the Center for Family Policy and Practice found “ample testimony by low-income non-custodial parents of spending time in jail for the nonpayment of child support.” Yet she could find no documentation of their incarceration. Government literature “yields so little information on it that one might be led to believe that arrests were used rarely if at all. While May personally witnessed fathers sentenced in St. Louis, “We could find no explicit documentation of arrests in St. Louis.” In Illinois, “We observed courtrooms in which fathers appeared before the judge who were serving jail sentences for nonpayment, but little information was available on arrests in Illinois.”

We know the arrests are extensive. To relieve jail overcrowding in Georgia, a sheriff and judge proposed creating detention camps specifically for “deadbeat dads.” The Pittsburgh City Planning Commission has considered a proposal “to convert a former chemical processing plant … into a detention center” for “deadbeat dads.”

Rendered permanently in debt by incarceration, fathers are farmed out to trash companies and similar concerns, where they work 14-16 hour days with their earnings confiscated.

More Malicious Mayhem
Other incarcerations are also attributable to feminism. The vast preponderance of actual violent crime and substance abuse proceeds from single-parent homes and fatherless children more than any other factor, far surpassing race and poverty. The explosion of single parenthood is usually and resignedly blamed on paternal abandonment, with the only remedy being ever-more draconian but ineffective child-support “crackdowns.” Yet no evidence indicates that the proliferation of single-parent homes results from absconding fathers. If instead we accept that single motherhood is precisely what feminists say it is — the deliberate choice of their sexual revolution — it is then apparent that sexual liberation lies behind not only these newfangled sexual crimes, but also the larger trend of actual crime and incarceration. Feminism is driving both the criminalization of the innocent and the criminality of the guilty.

We will continue to fight a losing battle against crime, incarceration, and expansive government power until we confront the sexual ideology that is driving not only family breakdown and the ensuing social anomie, but the criminalization of the male population. Ever-more-repressive penal measures will only further erode freedom. Under a leftist regime, conservatives must rethink their approach to crime and punishment and their unwitting collusion with America’s homegrown Stalinists.

After divorce, fathers too often excluded from parenting
By Jason Aulicino

Appeared in print: Wednesday, Dec 30, 2009

——————————————————————————–

According to the Strengthening Families Act of 2003,

“Nearly 24 million children in the United States, or 34 percent of all such children, live apart from their biological father.

Forty percent of children who live in households without a father have not seen their father in at least one year.

And 50 percent of such children have never visited their father’s home.”

The Census Bureau, in 2006, found that five of every six custodial parents are mothers (83.8 percent). One in six are fathers (16.2 percent), and 37.9 percent of fathers have no access or visitation rights.

Simplified, the result of divorce for the majority of children is a fatherless home.

If you are divorced and are the noncustodial parent, then you probably have experienced first-hand the inequity that exists in divorce and child custody cases. Restrictive visitation rules — or parenting plans, as they are now called — often accompany sole custody awards regardless of circumstance. Many status quo parenting plans are not based on a presumption of shared parenting, nor do they promote a father’s presence in a child’s life after divorce.

A meta-analysis of 33 studies found that “Children living in joint physical custody arrangements had better emotional, behavioral and general adjustment on multiple objective measures, and better academic achievement, when compared to children living in the sole physical custody of mothers.”

Additionally, for parents, and more commonly fathers, who are noncustodial parents and want to have a close, loving, supportive and active role in their children’s lives, a mother’s sole custodial award results in a near impossible visitation schedule and a set of circumstances keeping them from being anything other than a mere “visitor” to their children.

In a majority of cases, sole custody can hardly be justified as promoting the “best interest of the child.”

The conditions for noncustodial parents are deplorable, marginalizing, and often create circumstances that push them out of their children’s lives, creating a preponderance of fatherless homes. In addition, economic hardships, an inability to see the children regularly due to restrictive parenting plans, and the sole custodian’s intentional interference create an unequal balance in the children’s lives. Statistics clearly show the result is the noncustodial parent’s difficulty in maintaining a close relationship with the child.

A national study found that 77 percent of noncustodial fathers are not able to visit their children, as ordered by the court, due to “visitation interference” perpetuated by the custodial parent.

Two other peer-reviewed studies indicate that 40 percent of mothers reported that they had interfered with the noncustodial father’s visitation on at least one occasion to punish the ex-spouse. And approximately 50 percent of mothers see no value in the father’s continued contact with his children.

Because it is true that sole custody is overwhelmingly awarded to the mother, a father must often take a plea-bargain approach to gain substantial parenting time and avoid a restrictive status quo visitation plan. Often fathers must willingly forfeit custody through an out-of-court settlement, even when they believe it is not in the best interest of their children, in order to avoid a worse ruling by the court. This is happening to loving, able and willing fathers who would otherwise be spending time with their children.

If the United States wants fathers to be more involved in their children’s lives, then 24 million children’s living circumstances cannot be ignored.

In addition to promoting a father’s involvement, legal policy must be altered to encourage shared parenting. Only when the laws protect a father’s relationship with his children will society begin to accept that fathers are equally capable of raising a child. Then, and only then, a father will have no need to “win” sole custody of his children to protect his relationship with them.

If a sole custody presumption promotes a father’s presence, then it fails, and it fails big time. We absolutely do not want to promote an impression that a father’s financial obligations through child support are more important for the child’s welfare than the actual contact a child has with that parent.

It is undeniably in the child’s best interest to have both parents raise, provide for, and have the ability to make decisions regarding the upbringing of a child, if they are considered fit to do so.

Perhaps now it is time for a shared-parenting standard to become law rather than just a social movement. Today, millions of children in the United States depend on it.

Jason Aulicino of Eugene (DivorcedChildrensRights@gmail.com), a father and an advocate for divorced children’s rights, is a graduate student in Conflict and Dispute Resolution at the University of Oregon School of Law.

There is a new trend in the courts when determining child custody matters. This trend is seen in Florida’s new parenting law, which includes new factors for the courts to consider.

January 07, 2010

/24-7PressRelease/ — Fathers Gaining Ground in Custody Disputes

Nationwide, child custody laws have traditionally favored the mother. However, there seems to be a new trend in the courts towards considering several factors and taking a more balanced approach when determining child custody. This national trend is seen in the recent Florida parenting law, effective October 1, 2008, concerning child custody. The new law effectively abolishes standard primary custody procedure and nomenclature in favor of a more holistic approach to residential custody. This new progressive system includes elements such as a Parenting Plan, which outlines a parental time-sharing schedule, as opposed to the previous practice of designating one parent the “primary residential custodian” or “custodial parent,” and giving the other parent visitation. The Parenting Plan also typically gives each parent equal rights to participate in and consult regarding decision-making about the child’s upbringing, and further specifies by what means and how frequently the parents will communicate with one another to discuss child-related issues.

Reason for the New Trend
The new methods advocated by the Florida legislature seem to be part of an increasing trend in the law to make parties in a dispute more accountable for the end result rather than having a decision made for and forced upon them. It is a plea for a more gender neutral custody system in the law. Child custody decisions are generally difficult to dispute or modify. For this reason, supporters are looking to affect change by altering the statutes that govern initial child custody determinatons in divorces. Many believe that the new laws center on (or at least result in) providing fathers more legal rights after a divorce than previously afforded.

Child Custody Reform
Such laws are garnering force in many other states as well. Georgia implemented a law in 2008 that is similar to the Florida law, which requires a Parenting Plan. While a small percentage of custody battles lead to litigation, judges are taking a more generally neutral and balanced look at which parent will be better suited to optimize the child’s well-being. This is reflected not only in changing gender roles as time wears on, but also an understanding that the father has the same ability to raise a child as the mother. Nationally, around 85 percent of primary custody awards are given to the mother, and many groups are advocating changes to this presumption, which many have considered largely gender-biased or based on outdated sterotypes. However, there are those who argue that splitting time between parents, vis-a-vis equal time-sharing, could have detrimental effects as well due to the implication of a potentially unstable residential situation for the child.

Regardless of what happens, there is little doubt that child custody battles are becoming more common for men who want to have a say in how their children will be raised. This also will have an effect on the child support equation and which parent ultimately pays/receives child support. While the laws surrounding divorce custody issues are changing generally toward increased equality, the treatment of delinquent parents will not. If you have a question regarding the child custody laws in your state, it is important to speak with a family law attorney to learn more about your legal rights and options.

The Domestic Violence Industry targeting all men as violence perpetrators is a multi-billion dollar industry across the USA funded in large part by your governments at the federal and state level with assistance from politically correct gullible companies and naive men who want to appear chivalrous and “feminine”. This person is only the tip of a very, very large iceberg that no one wants to explore as it might explode feminist myths about patriarchy and heaven forbid open the door to female violence against men. (Tiger Woods, Mary K. Blige slugging hubby while opening a DV shelter for women only, and the missing info on Chris Brown getting clubbed by a stiletto heal before he overreacted. Did Charlie Sheen actually do that to his wife or was he set up by false allegations? Watch the Tyra Banks show on Thursday this week to see more about men getting abused every 38 seconds.- MJM

I agree completely with the above statement. Many mentally ill women who suffer from Parental Alienation Syndrome use Restraining Orders and false allegations of Domestic Violence to achieve their ends: destroy father’s rights to custody in the name of money, profit and greed. – Parental Rights

A former University of California, Davis, employee whom officials have accused of inflating crime statistics may have funneled university money into a private account and paid her mortgage with it, campus police said in a court document released this week.

As part of their embezzlement probe of Jennifer Beeman, investigators also raised the question of whether she had appropriately paid $540,000 to a Bay Area woman and her companies over a seven-year period.

Further investigation showed that she had asked for reimbursement for airfare to San Diego when her ticket had already been paid for by an outside group. She had also submitted travel mileage for meetings she did not attend, Henoch wrote.

University officials requested an internal audit and placed Beeman on administrative leave.

In February 2009, the audit concluded that Beeman had improperly submitted travel expenses of more than $1,000.

In October, campus officials said she had repaid $1,372 and retired in June.

On the same day, they also revealed Beeman had grossly inflated the number of forcible sexual offenses in three years of mandatory reports to the federal government. No reason was given.

Administrators also said in October that police were pursuing a second investigation into Beeman’s finances.

Details of that investigation were spelled out in a Dec. 1 statement by Henoch. He wrote that investigators had learned in early 2009 that Beeman had a “secret” checking account for a campus program called Take Back the Night.

Beeman told a co-worker that she had paid her home mortgage from the account, he wrote.

The account was located in July at the USE Credit Union, with Beeman listed as the only signatory, the police sergeant said in his statement.

Auditors found that nearly $12,000 in university funds had been deposited into the account, and Beeman had withdrawn $5,400 for personal use between January 2002 to March 2009, Henoch wrote.

The auditors also found that Beeman had authorized $25,000 in payments of federal grant funds to a company run by a woman named Granate Sosnoff to produce a campus anti-violence guide that was never completed, he wrote.

In November, Henoch said he discovered that the Campus Violence Prevention Program had paid Sosnoff and various media and marketing firms that she controlled more than $540,000 between May 2000 and April 2007.

“At this time it is unknown what type of relationship Beeman and Sosnoff have over the years,” he wrote, “if it is strictly business or if monies have exchanged hands between them.”

Sosnoff, who lives in Oakland, did not respond to a phone message Thursday.

The 47-year-old woman developed a series of acclaimed rape awareness posters for the university that were paid for with federal grant dollars.

The striking posters for the campaign, called “Voices Not Victims,” were featured in Ms. magazine and sought by other universities and the Ford Foundation’s office in Africa, according to a university press release from 2001.

Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the “report abuse” button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.

What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com

Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can’t play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)

Here are some rules of the road:

• Keep your comments civil. Don’t insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the “report abuse” button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.

• Don’t use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don’t say anything in a way you wouldn’t want your own child to hear.

• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.

• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.

• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.

• Don’t repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.

• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That’s spam and it isn’t allowed.

• Don’t use all capital letters. That’s akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.

You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the “report abuse” button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won’t and vice versa.

If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.

House Divided: Hate Thy Father

In an era of bitter divorce battles, parents often use children as hammers to bash each other, manipulating not only the legal system but also their children’s affections. Can a broken parent-child bond be restored?

By Mark Teich, published on May 01, 2007 – last reviewed on July 24, 2007

In 1978, after Cathy Mannis and her future husband moved into the same cooperative at U.C. Berkeley, they ran into each other often. She was not immediately smitten. “I detested him at first, and I should have stayed with that feeling,” recalls Cathy Mannis of her now ex-husband. “He was overweight and always very critical. Then he lost weight, became cuter, and started paying attention to me. He was going to be a doctor and he seemed so trustworthy; he said he would never desert his family as his own father had done to him.” They started dating, and she ultimately cared for him enough to marry him. “I thought he’d be a good father, and I was dying to be a mother. I thought we’d have a good life.”

She worked full-time as a legal secretary to put him through medical school. She also bought the two of them a town house with money she’d saved before marriage. When she gave birth to a boy, Matt (not his real name), she was as happy as she’d ever been. Over time, she saw signs that her husband was cheating on her, but she always forgave him.

Their second son, Robby, was born autistic, and things went downhill fast. The boy had speech and learning problems and was frequently out of control. Her husband was appalled. “He’s dumber than a fish,” he said.

Still, they had one more child, Harry (the name has been changed), hoping to give Matt a sibling without Robby’s problems. Harry turned out normal, but he bonded most closely with Robby; they became inseparable.

When Cathy once again became convinced her husband was cheating—he inexplicably never came home one night—she finally threw him out. He filed for divorce before she could forgive him again.

Cathy was granted primary custody of the kids, and her ex soon married the woman he’d been seeing on the side. Because of all she had to do to help Robby as well as her other two kids, Cathy could no longer hold a full-time job. Meanwhile, her ex declared two bankruptcies and, at one point, even mental disability, all of which kept alimony payments to a trickle.

Eventually Cathy was so broke that her electricity was turned off; she and the boys ate dinner by candlelight. Then she became so ill she had to be hospitalized for life-threatening surgery. She had no choice but to leave the kids with her ex. “He promised to return them when my health and finances improved,” she says.

That was almost seven years ago. Her health has long since returned and she has a good job she can do from home, but the only child ever restored to her, despite nonstop court battles, was Robby. In fact, her ex got the courts to rule that the children should be permanently separated, leaving the other two children with him, since Robby was a “threat” to his younger brother’s well-being.

Through all those years, Cathy says she faced a campaign of systematic alienation from Matt and Harry. “When I called to speak to them, I was usually greeted with coldness or anger, and often the boys weren’t brought to the phone. Then my ex sent letters warning me not to call them at home at all. Whenever the kids came to stay with me, they’d report, ‘Dad says you’re evil. He says you wrecked the marriage.’ ” Then he moved thousands of miles away, making it vastly more difficult for her to see her children.

As time has passed, the boys have increasingly pulled away. Matt, now grown and serving in the military, never speaks to Cathy. Thirteen-year-old Harry used to say, “Mommy, why can’t I stay with you? All the other kids I know live with their moms,” before leaving visits with her. Now he often appears detached from her and uninterested in Robby, whom he once adored. His friends at his new home think his stepmother is his mom, because that’s how she introduces herself. “She told me she would take my kids, and she did. The alienation is complete,” rues Cathy. “All I ever wanted was to be a mom.”

Divorcing parents have long bashed each other in hopes of winning points with kids. But today, the strategy of blame encompasses a psychological concept of parental alienation that is increasingly used—and misused—in the courts.

On the one hand, with so many contentious divorces, parents like Cathy Mannis have been tragically alienated from the children they love. On the other hand, parental alienation has been seized as a strategic tool in custody fights, its effects exploited in the courtroom, often to the detriment of loving parents protecting children from true neglect or abuse. With the impact of alienation so devastating—and false accusations so prevalent—it may take a judge with the wisdom of Solomon to differentiate between the two faces of alienation: a truly toxic parent and his or her victimized children versus manipulation of the legal system to claim damage where none exists.

A Symptom Of Our Time?

Disturbed by the potential for alienation, many divorce courts have today instituted aggressive steps to intervene where they once just stood by. And with good reason: Alienation is ruinous to all involved. “In pathological or irrational alienation, the parent has done nothing to deserve that level of hatred or rejection from the child,” explains University of Texas psychologist Richard Warshak, author of Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent-Child Bond from a Vindictive Ex. “It often seems to happen almost overnight, and neither the rejected parent nor even the rejecting child understands why.”

Often, in fact, it’s the emotionally healthier parent who gets rejected, Warshak adds. That parent tends to understand that it’s not in the child’s best interests to lose the other parent. In contrast, the alienating parent craves revenge against the ex—then uses the child to exact that punishment. “It’s a form of abuse,” Warshak says. “Both parent and child are victims.”

Mr Geldof, who fought for custody of his three daughters from his former wife Paula Yates, also alleged that British courts “consistently” show bias against men by handing custody to mothers.

His comments come in the foreword to a new report which draws together a clutch of recent research on the psychological effects of break-up on children.

The paper, published by The Custody Minefield, an internet legal advice service, and supported by Families Need fathers, the campaign group, calls for a change in the law on relocation cases in which separated parents apply for permission to move elsewhere.

It calls for the current guidelines to be changed to include an explicit ban on decisions favouring mothers on grounds of gender.

The report lists a raft of academic research which it says shows that children with no paternal influence are more likely to have behavioural problems, lower exam results, mental health problems, and even lower IQs.

It follows a recent study which found that up to a third of children whose parents separate lost touch with their father permanently.

“In the near future the family law under which we endure will be seen as barbaric, criminally damaging, abusive, neglectful, harmful to society, the family, the parents and the children in whose name it purports to act,” wrote Mr Geldof.

“It is beyond scrutiny or criticism and like a secret society its members – the judges, lawyers, social and child ‘care’ agencies behave like any closed vested interest and protect each others’ backs.”

He described the system as: “A farrago of cod professionalism and faux concern largely predicated on nonsensical social guff, mumbo-jumbo and psychobabble.

“Dangling at the other end of this are the lives of thousands of British children and their families.”

In a reference to the famed wisdom of the Biblical King Solomon, he added: “Rather than Solomon-like resolving our tragically human disputes with understanding, compassion and logical pragmatism, the courts have consistently acted against society’s interest through the application of prejudice, gender bias and awful impartial cruelty.”

Presented with two women who both claimed to be the mother of a baby, Solomon is said to have suggested cutting the child in half. One of them immediately begged him to give the baby to her rival, demonstrating that she was the true mother.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: “We are creating a family court system that is transparent, accountable, and inspires public confidence in its good work, whilst still protecting the privacy of children and families involved.

“That is why we have allowed greater media access to family courts which will lead to greater trust. We have also increased access to out of court family mediation by putting information about divorce, relationship breakdown and the family courts, and a link to the Family Mediation Helpline website, on the DirectGov website.

“It is for the court to consider the evidence put before them in each individual case. However, the child’s welfare will always be the court’s paramount consideration.”

When President Clinton signed into law the Adoption and Safe Families Act on Nov. 19, 1997, he unbalanced the scales of justice and removed the blindfold of Themis.

A change of philosophy was at hand. No longer did courts seek family preservation; instead, prompted by an extreme minority of neglectful parents, the courts now choose to terminate the parental rights’ of parents that are allegedly harmful.

On Nov. 24, 2009, I interviewed Chicago’s fathers’ rights author, activist and attorney Jeffery Leving about my perception of Themis as a sexist.

“When I started in 79, non-custodial fathers were a class of human beings badly discriminated against, and no one cared. Every once in a while I change a law, reunite a father with his child, and it inspires me and gives me hope for future changes,” Leving said.

To clarify, a non-custodial father refers to a father without physical and/or legal custody of his child by a court order. Leving discussed how in today’s society, these men are still difficult to represent due to “discrimination of our legal system.”

A precedent of sexism seems almost too obvious within our family courts.

“There has been a long history of discrimination in our legal system. Non-custodial men anger people in the position’s power. A judge told me, ‘If a father is accused of abuse, even if he did not do it, he did something else.’ Another judge said, ‘Men are biological requirements, but social accidents,’” Leving said.

The father’s right’s attorney went on to express how society’s expectation of a man’s responsibility is hypocritical. Society wants a man to be responsible while they actually believe he isn’t.

“So when a father wants to step up to the plate, they immediately think it is to get out of paying child support, to hurt the mother or for some other inappropriate reason. Fathers seem to be targeted no matter what they do.”

So, it is obvious that men are not equal in divorce and parental right cases. Due to gender stereotypes in society, women tend to have it much easier. Although the mother physically carries and gives birth to the child, the paternal father’s consent should also be held with high respect as well.

“My opinion is that the father’s consent is necessary, and it is justified to prevent the hardships and trauma that are unavoidable when a father is notified only after the adoption. Not only are men kicked to the curb, but if they appeal it could take years for them to be reunited with their child, and that is traumatizing for everyone involved.”

Besides prejudice, money is a big issue. Leving explained that children are worth a lot of money and the adoption agency is a multi-billion dollar industry. Couples unable to have children of their own will pay any cost in order to get a child. This puts the many young fathers at a disadvantage, since they hardly have the money to compete with both the adoption agency and eager couples.

When it comes to family court rulings and rights of the paternal father, the situation is plainly unfair. Sure there are circumstances to each individual situation, but the entire system is in dire need of evaluation.

We don’t ever see Daddy any more

MyView

WHEN parents are breaking up, the tragedy is that they are often so caught up in their own anger, hurt and turmoil that they have little attention to spare for their children.

Fighting over the home and maybe furious their partner has found a new love, they lash out, little realising that children can’t help identifying with both parents, wanting to love and be loved by them both equally.

Using kids as pawns in the battle is setting them up for long-term emotional damage.

Even if parents cannot live lovingly together, they owe it to their children to remember they can never have another mum or dad.

Unless contact with one parent is going to be dangerous because of violence, drugs, alcohol or mental health problems, both should make every effort to ensure it’s easy and comfortable for the kids to be with them both regularly, even if it means swallowing your rage while you negotiate contact arrangements.

Because this is such a common problem, I have written a special Kids In The Middle guide for separating parents and children on how to handle the hurdles.

THOUSANDS of British kids never see their dad again once their parents break up, a shocking new survey has revealed.

More than one in three youngsters – 38 per cent – go without having their father around after their parents split, and nearly one in ten are so traumatised they consider SUICIDE.

The findings, by a leading law firm, also discovered children are being caught in bitter custody battles, and many later turn to drink and drugs.

Sandra Davis, head of family law firm Mishcon de Reya, which surveyed 4,000 people, said: “This research shows that, despite their best intentions, parents are often using their children as emotional footballs.”

Here NIKKI WATKINS, NICK FRANCIS and JENNA SLOAN speak to four people who have been affected by divorce.

We hear from a mum whose husband left for Australia, a man who tracked down his long-lost dad and two fathers who haven’t seen their kids in years.

Richard

RICHARD separated from his long-term partner in May 1998, after six years.

The 43-year-old, from Carshalton, Surrey, who is on sick leave from his job as a train-driving instructor, has not seen his 15-year-old daughter for more than eight years, despite suffering with leukaemia.

His ex-partner moved 600 miles away, which makes visiting impossible as his leukaemia treatment is carried out in his home town.

Richard says: “We came to an understanding about contact times that worked out initially.

“Then my ex started mucking about with it. I said, ‘we need to sort this out’, as I didn’t want to go down the route of court because it is expensive and pits parent against parent.

“It becomes a battle of parents rather than what is right for the child.

“The advice I got at the time was to avoid the court system.

“I said that it was in our daughter’s best interests to continue seeing me.”

Richard eventually ended up seeking the advice of a solicitor.

He says: “The day before we were due for a directions hearing my ex phoned me and asked me what I wanted. I said the same as before and she said, ‘that is fine’.

But the situation changed when Richard’s ex got engaged and moved to Scotland.

He has since been diagnosed with leukaemia and when faced with chemotherapy told doctors not to worry about his fertility, as he was too traumatised to have more children.

He wrote to his ex and daughter to explain about his illness, but says he got no response.

Richard says: “I don’t get anything back – I haven’t in eight years. I just want an acknowledgement to say my daughter is aware of what has happened and sends her love. It’s an awful situation.

“I know they get to the address because everything is recorded delivery, the birthday presents and Easter eggs.

“I had to have counselling about losing my daughter. It has affected me in a big, big way.

“Children have a right to know both parents.”

Melanie Crow

MELANIE divorced her husband of 13 years after he left her and their two sons without warning.

When Melanie, 33, came home one day to find hubby Trevor leaving, she thought for a moment that he was going to the shops – before realising he meant he was going for good.

Husband left for Australia … Melanie Crow

North News

He left for a new life in Australia, since then having no contact with sons Oliver, then 3, and Joshua, then 8.

Melanie, a photographer from Durham, says: “Trevor left on March 8, 2008. I wasn’t aware of any real problems in our marriage, just the usual bickering. I came home from work and he said he was leaving.

“My oldest boy Joshua, who is now ten, has a lot of issues and has to see a counsellor.

“Because he was there when his dad was packing his things in the car, he blames himself for his dad leaving.

“My other son, Ollie, who’s five, was only three when his dad left so I think he has got off a bit lighter.

“They are both very clingy, though. I con-stantly have to reassure them.

“I’m worried about how it’s going to affect Ollie in the future. I also worry about my boys because there isn’t a male role model in the house.

“Trevor has my numbers and can get in touch with the boys if he wants, he just chooses not to.

“He took me to court this year to try and get access.

“We came to an agreement that he could come and see them over the summer but just one week before he was due, he cancelled.

“After spending thousands of pounds on a court case in this country, despite not having paid any money for the boys, he goes and disappoints them like that.

“If Trevor is the kind of man who can do this to his family then he’s not the sort of person I want around my kids.”

James Taylor

JAMES TAYLOR tracked down his long-lost dad, James Dennis, 52, through the internet after his parents divorced.

James 33, a mortgage adviser from Glasgow. says: “My mum and dad married when they were 17 and 18, which was very young.

“My dad, who was a welder, moved to Reading to find work and initially my mum went with him. But things didn’t work out and my mum came back to Scotland.

“My parents ended up divorcing and lost contact. I think it was a combination of the pressure on them, as they were so young, and the distance between them.

“I was their only child, and I saw my dad once when I was about seven, but that was it. It didn’t really occur to me to ask about him.

“All I’d ever known was my mum, Brenda, who remarried. But when I went to secondary school I began to wonder why I didn’t have a dad like the other kids did.

“When I was 17 my mum passed away due to complications in childbirth. It really made me think about things and start to question who my family was.

“I have four step-daughters with my wife Georgina and we have a boy Joshua, who is seven. I also have two step-granddaughters.

“Having my own children did make me think even more about getting in touch with my dad. My wife was very supportive but I was worried about finding Dad. What if he didn’t like me?

“In 2006 I logged on to the Genes Reunited website and typed in my father’s name. I hadn’t seen him for 23 years. One match came up that turned out to be my aunt, I was delighted when I got an email from her.

“She passed my contact details on to my dad and we arranged to meet.

“Going to meet him for the first time was very emotional. I’d only seen him in his old wedding picture, with long hair in the 1970s, so I didn’t recognise him straight away.

“But when it finally dawned on me that this was my dad I was thrilled. We have some of the same characteristics – our eyes are similar – and we have similar mannerisms too.

“And I have a half-brother and half-sister that I’d never met, along with aunties, uncles and cousins. I’m so glad I logged on to that website.”

Paul

DAD Paul is a full-time carer for his elderly father.

He split with his wife of 25 years and lost contact with his son, then aged seven, 12 years ago.

Lost contact with son … Paul

Paul, 57, from Hampshire, is still coming to terms with his loss. He says: “My wife decided that she wanted the relationship to finish and we divorced.

“Very quickly it became difficult to have contact with my son.

“You get cursory visits once every two weeks. It was difficult right from the beginning, but I saw him for about a year, every other weekend. That isn’t sufficient for a relationship.”

Paul went to court to try tomaintain the contact but thesituation deteriorated.

He says: “If one parent is trying hard to stop contact, the court doesn’t really do anything to enforce contact with the absent parent.”

That is why Paul finds the new statistics about so many children not seeing their fathers unsurprising.

He says: “I wrote many articles and did some charity work for a time for all of the charity groups who were trying to get the system changed.

“I did it because there are probably about a million kids out there who have not got what you could call a decent family.

“If you include the extended family then the number of people involved is just colossal. The figure of 38 per cent doesn’t surprise me at all. It almost destroys you. You miss everything.

“I don’t even know categorically if my son is alive – simple as that.

“I took it all the way to the highest court and that got me experienced in the legal system.

“So I was advising other people how to keep the cost down and how to do it themselves.

“I have moved on now – it took me several years to get to that stage and it was a very desperate state. I have been divorced 12 years now and I fought for five years in the courts. My life could always be better.

“More than anything I would want my son to know that I care and that I am still caring.”

NetworkedBlogs

Materials Posted

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html, any copyrighted work on this website is distributed
under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
We ENCOURAGE you to go to the original sources to read the WHOLE STORY
Read all about Copyright & Fair Use at- http://fairuse.stanford.edu/